


but first they must catch you

by seraf



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Eventual Relationships, F/F, Gaslighting, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Multi, Past Abuse, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Stream of Consciousness, Suicidal Thoughts, Transphobia, incest is traumatizing and abusive and is portrayed as such, uncertain au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-02-10 18:58:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18666397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf
Summary: ( all the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies. and when they catch you, they will kill you. but first they must catch you. )they wake up.even for a liar, it's hard to determine what was truth and what was a lie._________in a different lifetime, kokichi thinks he might have laughed, at the way their talents were all used against them.( maybe he had. his memories of how he got here were still fuzzy. was there ever really a show, or was that part of the lie? was this just part of the admissions test for hope’s peak, like one of the nurses had said, or was that her lie? were they already students, and this was part of the ongoing experimentation on talents they were doing? had the world ever ended? was the tragedy something that was ever real? he can’t untangle truth and fiction, and it frustrates him. no one ever believes him when he says he hates liars. but he hates this feeling of uncertainty, of the loss of control. )





	1. Chapter 1

 

_this story now has[fanart](https://marshmellow-7he-d00dler.tumblr.com/post/184764226798/b-u-t-f-i-r-s-t-t-h-e-y-m-u-s-t)! thanks very much to marshmallow!_

* * *

if he were talking to the reporters right now, kokichi would weave a tale about how every night, when he finally fell asleep, he would see the hydraulic press coming towards his face before waking up, sheets drenched in a cold sweat.

 

but that’s a lie.

 

sometimes he doesn’t dream at all. sometimes it’s just that moment again of the pod door opening, of them trying to still his thrashing, going _kokichi ouma, it’s alright, you are alive. can you breathe for us? how many fingers am i holding up? do you have any idea where you are? what’s the last thing you remember?_

 

the cold burn of an iv in his arm and the rotation of whatever the hell they were putting into it.

 

none of it had been real, in the end. well . . . some of it was real. the people they were _was_ real. but it turns out . . . this was really the end goal of the ultimate hunt. to use them as characters for this game. to test their resiliance, like a kid dropping something out of the window again and again until it finally breaks.

 

he remembers one of the nurses talking to him, when he was still trying to figure out what was real and not-real.

 

 _so, the end of the world?_ he had asked her, feigning sounding casual as he slung one foot over his knee, pretending even that small movement didn’t make him want to vomit.

 

she had just given him a tired smile. _it was a lie,_ she said, and he almost grimaced at his own words from the game being twisted around at him. almost. but he’s a liar and a trickster, so he just leans back on the hospital bed and ignores the screaming ache of a body just out of stasis, pillowing his head on his arms. feigns indifference.

 

_was it? i kinda guessed all along. though maybe that’s a lie._

 

all of them have taken a few days to get back into it. ryoma carries an inhaler now, the few times kokichi has seen him - has overheard the nurses talking, can puzzle out the words written on the fancy prescription bottle well enough to know that it’s nothing but water vapor when he presses it down, struggles to catch his breath. no medication, nothing but the false assurance of health.

 

he’s not the only one they’ve been doing that to.

 

miu, wearing a neck brace around. kokichi knows that her neck wasn’t really damaged, knows the brace isn’t doing anything but making her stiff, perhaps. knows which of the pills they hand him are just sugar pills, but swallows them all the same as though he doesn’t see through it. maybe his body will accept the placebo anyway - he’s never really been sure how those things work, specifically.

 

liars know other liars.

 

placebos and fake braces and bandages over unmarred skin might be white lies or helpful in the end, but kokichi still knows them as his kin.

 

he steals things, sometimes, just to prove that even with his shaking hands and the panic that threatens to flood over the edge of his vision, that he still can. a pair of papery scrub pants, tucked under his pillow. a bright green crayon out of a box in the rec room he assumes must belong to angie. a handful of band-aids, taking them out of their wrappers and reducing the wax paper wrapping to shredded fluff, nervous hands looking for something to do.

 

it takes some time and coordination and convincing for them to all be . . . remotely steady enough to meet in the rec room.

 

 _we’re going to watch the whole game, now,_ one of the nurses says, gently offering him a hand up, like he’s a little kid - he takes it, doesn’t have the energy to bother complaining - and leading him out of the door. _so that everyone knows what happened, what the outside world saw._

 

he’s one of the first to get there, taking one of the beanbags and tossing his short legs up on the table, stabbing a hole in the aluminum foil lid to a juice container, rattling it a little to break up the chunks of frozen juice inside. he slurps it obnoxiously out of the hole he punctured, looking around the room - rantaro is leaning up against the wall calmly. as the first one of them dead, he looks the closest to normal, in street clothes, his posture languid rather than the edgy sort of panic most of them have.

 

kokichi wonders if his calm is a lie, too.

 

it bothers him that he can’t quite tell. he didn’t know rantaro long enough. he’s not even sure _rantaro_ knew himself long enough to develop any obvious tells. he looks away from him towards the projector screen, idly tearing open the foil lid of the cup even more, dropping the pieces into the empty plastic vessel.

 

the rest of them file in slowly.

 

none of them sit near kokichi. he can’t really blame them.

 

shuichi, maki, and himiko all cluster together - they still look at their classmates as if they’ve, well, returned from the dead. they take up the beaten blue couch with the marker stains, maki giving a dagger glare to any of the nurses or atendees that even try to approach them. shuichi mostly just looks - apologetic, dazed. he catches kokichi’s eyes and his head dips with guilt. kokichi gives him a bright grin and flashes a peace sign at him.

 

even if he can’t keep down solid food just yet, he’s not going to let detective boy pity him. that’s not something he’s just gonna allow.

 

tenko’s gaze is glazed over, and it takes two of the hospital workers to gently sit her down in one of the chairs. her eyes don’t focus. she’s tried to fight a handful of the danganronpa workers, and has succeeded far too many times for their comfort. she’s been on some kind of heavy tranquilizers since then. kokichi idly wonders if they’ll let her be awake enough to watch with them.

 

there’s someone in the room he doesn’t recognize, with their knees curled up to their chest on a chair and a blanket wrapped around them, concealing half their face. their hair is short and choppy, reaching to their shoulders and falling in their face. the only visible part of them are two gaunt hands with white knuckles, littered with scars, clutching on the ends of the blanket.

 

kaito looks away from him when their eyes meet. kokichi doesn’t want to admit that he did the same thing.

 

the rec room is a pretty small one. which just makes it all the more ridiculous how clearly most of them are trying to avoid each other.

 

huh. he doesn’t see tsumugi anywhere.

 

he wants to say something, break the tension or make everyone glare at him again, and he lifts his head with a grin to try and say something - but . . . he can’t. the words don’t push out of his throat. he can’t muster something up. he swallows, and wavers to his feet. ‘ i’m gonna . . . get another juice, ‘ he mutters, and takes out another one of the four-ounce containers, slamming it on the table to break up the chunk of frozen juice inside.

 

no matter how long these things were in the fridge, they always seemed to be half-ice when you went to drink them.

 

they’re all there, eventually, some of them looking much worse for wear than the others. kokichi flops back in his seat like he’s on the higher end of the recovery scale, as if his skin didn’t cling to his ribs and dark circles didn’t form sickly coronas under his eyes.

 

the show starts with cheerful music, and the danganronpa theme, and kokichi doesn’t want to look at it. it’s boring - why bother watching something through that he’s already seen? he just doesn’t see the point of it, that’s all.

 

another lie. he doesn’t want to watch.

 

instead, he turns curious eyes to kaede, who seems to have been cast as the point of view character, following her around as she met them all for the first time, tried to amp up shuichi, tried to shut down their negativity or lead them all through that awful underground passage again and again and again. the kaede on screen seems to be a brave and steadfast young woman, fearlessly charging ahead.

 

the kaede sitting here now, her thinner face illuminated by the tv screen, frowns at that kaede as though she hates her.

 

there’s an absent, reeling part of kokichi’s mind that tries to think about it like an audience member, or like one of the people who had been watching over this whole - what, game? social experiment? show? _too many characters - no way they could all stay around, the writers aren’t going to be able to keep track of such a bloated cast. they need to be cared enough about that you’re distressed when they die, but not so much so that you don’t see the point in watching after they do._

 

it’s almost easy, thinking about it like that.

 

( another lie. he remembers being there. remembers hearing the monokubs’ tinny voices for the first time, remembers the first and then sixth and then fourteenth time he’d woken up in the tunnel entrance after falling to his supposed death in the tantalizing exit, remembers kirumi’s calming voice as she introduced herself, remembered mocking kaede. )

 

they watch themselves find rantaro’s corpse in the library, and kokichi watches - sees things he didn’t the first time round. focuses on everyone other than himself, other than kaede and shuichi.

 

sees kiyo kneel besides rantaro’s head for a moment and brush his eyes shut in the background, granting some dignity to the dead - it’s not something kokichi would have expected from him. sees kirumi rest a grounding hand on himiko’s shoulder, helping ease her shivering at tenko’s request, the other girl too loud and brash to know how to help, reaching out to the ultimate maid to try and comfort the mage in her place. angie, her eyes wide and childlike as she clasped her hands in prayer, looking as though none of it is really hitting her.

 

( he looks over to angie now, where she sits on the floor, her legs crossed, still smiling, carefully drawing overlapping lines in a rainbow of colors - it doesn’t look like anything. just colors layered on top of colors, her smile unwavering. there’s something about angie that had become a little spooky, towards the end. kokichi wouldn’t admit it, but there had been a moment where he had been glad she’d died - the cult she had formed splintering in her absence. )

 

( he wonders if her devotion was a lie, too. )

 

 _you were setting a trap for the mastermind?_ rantaro asks kaede, interested, and she nods, her mouth tugging into a thin line of regret, brows drawing together. he gives her an easy sort of grin, a flash of white teeth. _can’t blame you for that. just wish you’d given me a bit more of a heads-up._

 

kaede kicks him in the shin. there’s a muffled snort through the group, concealed behind hands or lips pressed firmly together or heads ducked down to cloak the sound. kokichi rolls his eyes. ( he sees kaito looking over him as though he expected him to laugh, and sticks out his tongue childishly at the astronaut. ) 

 

the sun starts to set through the gaps in the blinds. one of the nurses takes an aborted little half-step, like he’s going to shut down the tv for the night, but he’s met with fifteen different glowers, and retreats back to his corner.

 

the trial is different from how kokichi remembers it - told from kaede’s point of view, their words illuminated on-screen, everything saturated in colors and design to make it pop. _i agree with that!_ slashed in a bar across the screen. truth bullets. morphenomenal trial grounds. argument armament. non-stop debate. panic debate. it blurs together in a twist of familiar faces and sharp-edged fonts and bright colors and flashy music.

 

until the music cuts out. until shuichi, the shuichi on screen, figures it out.

 

there’s a moment where kokichi almost feels bad for the two of them. he had figured it out easily by the time the trial had started - _but that’s kaede’s lie, isn’t it?_ liars know liars, after all. kaede was a pianist, and her tells were predictable - her words off-beat, her fingers tapping nervously by her side.

 

but should he, anymore? it turns out, none of them were dead after all. no harm done.

 

that’s a lie.

 

der flohwahlzer begins to play, kaede’s feet brushing against the comically large keys as her face begins to turn red, then purple, then blue, monokuma dripping with synthetic sweat as he gesticulates, the fake crowd booing at the out-of-tune song as kaede’s feet, twitching, continue to press into the lines of white keys.

 

cruel irony.

 

in a different lifetime, kokichi thinks he might have laughed, at the way their talents were all used against them.

 

( maybe he had. his memories of how he got here were still fuzzy. was there ever really a show, or was that part of the lie? was this just part of the admissions test for hope’s peak, like one of the nurses had said, or was that her lie? were they already students, and this was part of the ongoing experimentation on talents they were doing? had the world ever ended? was the tragedy something that was ever real? he can’t untangle truth and fiction, and it _frustrates_ him. no one ever believes him when he says he hates liars. but he hates this feeling of uncertainty, of the loss of control. )

 

the final note of der flohwalzer hangs in the air, the hinges of the piano lid creaking along with kaede’s gently swinging corpse, and whatever the rope is hanging from, and then the lid shudders, as though the song reverberated just a little too much just a little too loud, and monodam _pushes,_ and the lid is slamming down in a splatter of gory pink and sparking metal and someone is shouting and -

 

oh.

 

oh, that’s him, isn’t it?

 

the screaming is coming from him, the moment the piano cover reduces akamatsu’s corpse to blood that drips down the keys, like popping a zit, if the zit were a whole person and all the blood inside of them was suddenly - and the piano lid becomes the sheet of metal, for a second so close that his nose brushes it while he swaps places with kaito, and there’s a moment where he realizes _oh, this is it, huh?,_ a moment of no going back, and _he’s still yelling why is he still yelling they’re all looking at him -_

 

he cuts it off abruptly, gives a trickster’s grin, puts a finger to his lips. _what? you were all being too quiet. it got booooring._

 

it’s not one of his better lies. but they’re all too shaken to realize it, seemingly - he gets a few disgusted looks for it, and that’s all. ( shuichi’s eyes linger on him for a moment, corners of his mouth drawn in something like sorrow, and that didn’t work at _all_ what the hell are you sorry for, detective? who are you looking at with those eyes? )

 

the tv gets turned off decisively after kaede’s trial, and they find themselves blinking at the sudden change in light.

 

 _i think it’s all time for you to get some rest. we’ve got time to watch more of this. we don’t want you to upset yourselves that much,_ one of their . . . doctors? wardens? says, voice rife with false sympathy.

 

kokichi almost tries to hop up on the seat of his chair, but his legs feel fuzzy and he staggers, so he compromises with leaning almost casually on the seat back and pointing a finger, almost singing out his accusation. _liaaaar, liaaaar! that was a lie, you know. i would know!_ he cups his face with one hand angelically and ignores his twitching fingers. _i know most of you are pretty dumb, but i didn’t think you were that stupid._

 

they’re looking at him again, and he beams for the attention, doing his best to look carefree, even as fatigue sinks into his bones and he’s not sure if he can make it back to his room - but then the second passes, and they look past him, through him, trickling out of the room. subdued. he swallows down his frustration.

 

_aren’t you going to fight back at all? are you just going to listen to them, after everything that’s happened?_

 

shuichi pauses in the doorway, looks back at him, uncertain. kokichi supposes that makes sense. given the way things had apparently turned out, his plan must have failed. or - shuichi must have seen through it. he wonders what shuichi thinks of him, after that. about his one moment of barefaced honesty, shouted out at kaito with the bittersweet relief that came with knowing kaito wouldn’t be able to take anything he said at face value.

 

and what about kee-boy? he hadn’t seen him, there. was he really dead? was he ever a robot? was he a real, human boy? was he an artificial intelligence? whatever the answer was, kokichi hadn’t seen him.

 

kokichi is lithe, and kokichi is quick on his feet, and he’s able to shrug off the hand that one of the caretakers rests on his shoulder, whistling out a cheerful excuse and ducking into one of the side hallways, crouching behind a laundry bin for a second.

 

given how shaky his legs are, it’s likely that they saw him. but . . . it seems like they can’t be bothered to catch him. his chest aches, and he sits on the cold linoleum, the cold from the tiles seeping through the thin hospital clothes almost immediately.

 

for once, he doesn’t want to be chased.

 


	2. Chapter 2

kokichi reminds him of a rabbit.

 

perhaps it’s becaue his name sounds like many languages’ words for them - _konijn, κουνέλι, kuniklo, králíci, kuneho._

 

maybe it’s for the american folk story. _and the rabbit begged and pleaded with its captor - ‘oh, br’er fox, i don’t care what you do with me, you can cut me to tiny pieces or roast me alive over your fire there, so long as you don’t throw me into that briar patch. slow-cook me on a spit or wring my neck or stick my head on a pike, but whatever you do - please, please, don’t throw me into the briar patch. ‘ and br’er fox looked at br’er rabbit, and decided that because the stream was so far away, and because he had no string to hang him with, the cruelest death he could give him was to throw him to the briars br’er rabbit was quivering in fear at the idea of. so he threw him, right into the thorns, wanting to see him torn to shreds. but br’er rabbit just sprang to his feet, right in that briar patch, and sang out to br’er fox - ‘ i was born and raised in a briar patch, br’er fox! born and raised in a briar patch. ‘_

 

maybe it’s the centzontotochtin, the aztec heavenly rabbits, all four hundred of them, who represented the different kinds of intoxication. like tezcatzoncatl, the god of drunkards, or the ‘straw mirror’, because trying to act while drunk was as easy as trying to see your reflection in a mirror made of straw. kiyo thinks he might have better luck, seeing himself in a straw mirror, than trying to see under kokichi’s mask.

 

maybe kalulu, the central african rabbit, who played a trickster role as well - inventing a snare and causing discord among the different animals, making them blame each other, riling them up to watch. eventually caught in his own trap, but when he was set free, walked home thinking _what kind of trick will i play next?_

 

or watership down, which in its own way, drew upon the common theme of rabbits as tricksters. kokichi brought to mind the quote from frith to el-ahrairah. _el-ahrairah, your people cannot rule the world, for i will not have it so. all the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. but first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed._

 

kokichi, he had noticed, when he had still been a player in the game with the opportunity to notice, was the calculated kind of cruel and immature that meant he was actively trying to get under peoples’ skin. or - more so, actively _trying_ to make them hate him. kiyo had been looking forwards to seeing how far he would go with that, or if his facade would ever crack, but he had been executed before he ever had the chance to see. 

 

so, kokichi ouma, prince with a thousand enemies. self declared supreme leader, self-made enemies.

 

and perhaps he had the same reason behind his lies and his cruelty. _listener, runner._ kiyo thought about how kokichi always seemed to be a few steps ahead of all of them - though he would lead them in circles in the trials, kiyo had come under the impression that he had already come to a conclusion by the time the rest of them had taken their places behind their podiums.

 

 _be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed._ kokichi was never open about the group he led. but if korekiyo were the type of person to make bets, and if he _had_ anything he could bet at the moment, he would stake it all on the wager that kokichi cared about the group he led. he knew by now what people acted like when they _truly_ didn’t care about anyone, and kokichi was a good liar, but he was still human.

 

later, hearing bits and pieces of how ouma had died, something else that comes to mind is the superstition surrounding rabbits’ feet. good luck charms, yes, ( though good luck charms themselves were almost always nothing but placebo effects ) but certainly not good luck for the one who had had to die in order to create the charm in the first place.

 

his thoughts are disjointed, these days.

 

 _she_ had tried speaking through him again, had bit their lips until blood was drawn as a cruel substitute for her lipstick ( because blood was _red,_ because this was the real world and blood wasn’t an aching saccharine pink, and how could he have forgotten that? blood was meant to be the color of the moon in eclipse and flowers and how many different stories did he know about _red red red red red -_ ) and looked at themselves in the mirror.

 

 _she_ hadn’t been happy, with the goosebumps that prickled their skin uncontrollably, for the exposed hands ( rough and calloused and too broad to be her gentle delicate hands, hands of an invalid and a scholar who had spent most of her life in bed ) and vague trace of an adam’s apple on their throat and the way their hair was a greasy mess.

 

‘ oh, korekiyo, ‘ _she_ says, her voice soft, dangerous soft, as he feels their hand brush the side of their face, as though _she_ was cupping his cheek, ‘ you used to be so beautiful, korekiyo. i don’t know if i can stay in this body. ‘ and he understands, because the circles under his eyes are dark and deep and he can only stagger a few steps before falling and there’s no bandages or masks or lipstick to distinguish themselves, but he weeps for it, wrapping his arms around themselves as though by doing that, he can hold _her_ there.

 

‘ don’t go, ‘ he says, holding one hand over their mouth to emulate the mask that seperated them. ‘ sister . . . i promise to you. i can fix things. ‘ _please don’t leave me,_ he thinks, because the only friends he’s ever made have been the ones he sent her, and he’s beginning to feel that’s nothing like friendship - but something, there had been something, with his classmates, with the way shuichi would keep visiting him in his lab to hear his stories or his discussions with kirumi about different tea etiquette through cultures and times, but he knows. he knows none of them will want to see him again, and he can’t blame them.

 

without _her,_ he had no one.

 

without _her,_ he had nothing.

 

. . . without _her,_ he _was_ nothing.

 

and then there’s the swell of voices, surrounding him as he keeps his head down, hair hiding his face, and he finds out that maybe she was never real at all. that maybe _he_ isn’t real at all - that there was never supposed to _be_ a korekiyo shinguji, ultimate anthropologist.

 

maybe it was all fake. but maybe it was all real. the people who come in to change his iv or carry him over to the bathroom or who sit with notepads by his bed all say different things. he doesn’t respond to any of it - as an observer himself, he idly thinks that they should know better. observers don’t make themselves a part of the observation.

 

( a small part of him hates tsumugi for that alone, when he finds out that part. )

 

 _quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ latin. who will watch the watchers? originally from the poet juvenal - satire vi. initially about marital fidelity, but now a larger expression for the question of keeping those in power in check.

 

he thinks he’s found another meaning of it, here and now.

 

_who will watch the watchers?_

 

he was a watcher, an observer. a bystander by career - it wasn’t his job to intervene, just to learn, and to retain, and to study. and now he is being watched - by the counselors who stop by his bed, by the security camera in the corner of his room, by the ever-present ghost lingering in his bones, and if some of the stories can be believed, by the entire world, over live tv.

 

they bring him into the rec room one day. kirumi and kaito and kaede are also there, and isn’t _that_ funny - k for korekiyo and kirumi and kaito and kaede and _killer._ gonta isn’t there for some reason. kiyo isn’t listening. he lets them talk, and stares at their knees the whole time until someone tugs at their wrist gently to bring him back to his room.

 

he has to remember. when speaking about their body, it is never _his._ it’s theirs, theirs, theirs, because it’s as much _hers_ as it is his.

 

he doesn’t know why, but he finds himself staring in the mirror again, leaning on the door so that one of their watchers can’t open it ( none of the bathrooms have locks, in case one of them decides to try and kill themselves, or maybe because they’d signed away all their rights to privacy already ) and holding a pair of safety scissors.

 

he doesn’t quite remember taking them from the rec room. just that it had been important that he _did._

 

‘ korekiyo, ‘ _she_ says, lowering their hand from where he’s had it clamped over their mouth since they awoke again. ‘ what are you planning to do? ‘

 

nothing, he wants to say, because there _isn’t_ a plan anymore, just a laugh that bubbles out from their chest in hysteria ( ancient greece, from the term for uterus, stemming from the belief that the uterus was capable of moving about the body and that this could cause an ailment of _hysteria,_ or too much emotion in women ) that he isn’t sure - is it hers? is it his?

 

in the same way that the two of them had overlapped at the trial. _apologize. apologize. apologize apologize apologize. come on, apologize._

 

maybe it’s him. maybe it’s _her._ maybe it’s from some odd empty place inside of him that doesn’t belong to _either_ of them, and he clings to that idea as a comfort for some reason.

 

he isn’t a very good person, is he?

 

and . . . _she_ isn’t either, he realizes, staring at themselves with their hand clamped over their mouth.

 

it is their body, and their hand, and for a few moments, korekiyo loses custody of it as he attempts to raise the scissors to their hair.

 

‘ you are already ugly enough, korekiyo, ‘ _she_ hisses, from their bloodstained blood red chapped dry lips ( deer tallow used to treat chapped lips in the scottish highlands, goldenseal used by the micmac and possibly iroquois ) ‘ you cannot take this from me as well. ‘ and _she_ pouts, and even her frown is beautiful, and their hand traces over their long hair, the other hand wrapping around their waist as she reaches to embrace him. ‘ let me have this, ‘ she murmurs.

 

so why does it sound so much like _let me have you?_

 

she keeps talking, voice soothing and melodic, but the words blend together. all he can think about is salt - escaping from being boiled to death just to have his body melt, _her_ and monokuma both laughing at him around handfuls of salt they flung at him, his form warping away to nothingness, because salt is meant to banish evil spirits so that’s what he must be, right? but . . . she hurt him, and she had laughed as he screamed and screamed and screamed until everything went dark.

 

but she still needed a body, and he had promised her theirs.

 

he was an evil spirit, wasn’t he? and even oni kept their promises, in stories - it was humans who broke their words, humans who had to look behind them or open the box or eat the fruit.

 

he bites their lip, and tastes blood. his fingers shake. his arms are rife with scars, and his hair is still matted and greasy, not able to wash it regularly or go through his routines of getting ready here.

 

evil spirits had more grace to them.

 

an anthropologist would know humanity, right? so he knew, then, with the iron-salt taste of their blood - no, _his_ blood - staining his mouth, that he was human.

 

he feels lighter, somehow, when he leaves the bathroom, his hair now just long enough to fall to his neck.

 

still, he doesn’t speak. he doesn’t have anything to say, and he worries that if he opens his mouth, it will be _her_ voice again, sohe stays in his room, even as he sees his classmates slowly starting to re-integrate, watching them in the rare opportunities he gets as one of them walks past his window. one time he was being led to the bathroom and he nearly walked into angie, who had looked at him - hunched over, maskless, shivering, hair choppy and short - and hadn’t recognized him at all.

 

they watched the first . . . chapter, maybe, of danganronpa today, all as a group. the colors hurt his eyes. hurt his head. he just wants to get back to his room.

 

kokichi ouma reminds him of a rabbit.

 

it’s the stream of thought sparked now because, through the window in his door, he sees kokichi duck down behind a laundry bin, eyes glassy and wide as a few of their keepers walk past - wolves? foxes? dogs? - and only cautiously poking his head up once he’s sure they’ve gone by, his nose twitching once with the disgusted look he shoots after them.

 

he watches ouma flatten himself against the wall as a disinterested janitor begins to move the laundry bin away, watching his hiding place get rolled down the hall - sees him chew his nail, eyes sharp at the realization that he’s exposed, now.

 

he’s not sure what drives him to do it.

 

but they’re both bad people, aren’t they? and kokichi has been aware of it for some time now. perhaps he can help kiyo. perhaps he can tell him how to make it stop hurting.

 

he shuffles to his door and opens it enough for kokichi to spot him, makes a choked little coughing noise - he’s not sure what to say, he hasn’t spoken to anyone but _her_ since he woke - but it’s enough for kokichi to dart in, locking the door behind him and perching on kiyo’s stretcher as the anthropologist shuffled back towards it.

 

‘ wow, kiyo! ‘ he chirps with a little grin. ‘ you look like shit! ‘

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do u know. how hard it is to write stream-of-consciousness when the character you're writing is significantly smarter than you


	3. Chapter 3

kiyo is sitting against the back of his stretcher again,watching kokichi with tired eyes that peer out from under strands of hair that fall into his face, messy and dark. he used to think of kiyo sort of like a snake - his eyes yellow and ominous, a dangerous sort of grace to everything he did. but there was . . . none of that now, really. spindly, rather than sinuous. eyes tired, rather than insidious.

 

the anthropologist would probably have a story to go with that - some myth or old tradition involving snakes and gods and spirits and death or something of the sort. but looking at him, kokichi can’t see anything otherworldly about it at all.

 

animals killed each other, sure. but they weren’t dead. ( right? ryoma had muttered in passing that this could just be hell, and kokichi hadn’t actually been able to prove _otherwise_ just yet. oh well. ) but hurting someone else for entertainment alone . . . that just seemed brutally human.

 

not that he’d point that out to kiyo. maybe he’d just think it was beautiful.

 

he hums to himself, tunelessly, and swings his legs over the side of the bed, kicking them childishly as he begins to rummage through his pockets. he’d stolen this more for the hell of it than anything else, but . . .

 

kiyo watched with a removed sort of interest as kokichi pulled out a few hair bands, soda tabs, crumpled dollar bills, and paperclips half-fashioned into lockpicks out of his pockets, looking for what he wanted. he makes a small triumphant noise, and pulls out a slightly crumpled surgical mask, handing it to kiyo with a little whistled fanfare effect.

 

kiyo’s eyes widen briefly, before narrowing again, looking at kokichi like he suspects a trap. which . . . might be reasonable.

 

‘ come oooon, kiki, what am i gonna do? ‘ he says, giving a cherubic smile, framing his face with one hand and fluttering his eyelashes dramatically. ‘ kill you? ‘ his eyes suddenly turn dark and sinister, his smile sharp and stretching across his face.

 

surprisingly, kiyo takes the mask at that, slipping it over his face.

 

 _huh,_ kokichi thinks at that, and a few things about kiyo make a little more sense, looking at them from this light. ( the advice he’d given shuichi, after kaede’s trial. _being a tad insensitive is important for survival. it helps one avoid suicidal thoughts._ his arms always being bandaged then, and the way he hugs himself even now, as if trying to hide them from kokichi’s view. his obsession with death. ) he chews on a stolen pen curiously. _interesting._

 

he had dealt in his own facades - bold enough in expression and voice and personality that people never thought of him with concern or pity. if he turned himself into enough of an archetypal villain, a trickster, he’d be able to control the way eyes were on him. he supposes that kiyo had had his own way of doing that. he was honestly a little impressed - intentional or not, it had even slipped past him. he had also mostly just thought the anthropologist was creepy.

 

what larger-than-life characters they had both made!

 

( _all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts_ )

 

jester, trickster, mastermind, martyr, leader, villain. scholar, killer, brother, traveller, spectre, villain.

 

friend? no. not for either of them.

 

maybe it had been an active choice for kiyo as well. for people to avoid him or shy away from him. more kudos to him if that _was_ the case, but kokichi didn’t think that was his way. for someone who studied humans, korekiyo shinguji was just very bad at understanding _people._

 

‘ . . . thank you. ‘

 

kiyo’s voice cuts through his idle thoughts like a sword through wax. kokichi had almost forgotten he was actually _sitting_ there, to be honest. he shrugs, making it into an exaggerated, rolling motion, and spreads his arms, in a mockery of the state of reverie kiyo sometimes seemed to ascend to, back in the school. ‘ tricked you! you owe me, now. ‘ he taps his chin, pretending to be thoughtful as he lets his legs dangle. ‘ maybeeeee . . . your soul, right? or you have to work for me, forever. that’s pretty fitting of an ultimate supreme leader, right? riiiight? ‘

 

words are _so_ easy. so comfortable. it’s easy to just slip right back into the protective layer of pointed words and lies, like warm bathwater.

 

korekiyo doesn’t reply, and for a moment, kokichi thinks he might’ve actually just . . . fallen asleep. not too unexpected, really - all of them are still incredibly unstable, health-wise. when his eyes do open again, they’re the scholar’s eyes, studying kokichi, and his fingers curl reflexively against the edge of the bed, but he doesn’t let any other sign that he’s unnerved slip through the cracks.

 

‘ i don’t think you’re as bad as you try to make yourself seem, ‘ korekiyo murmurs, half to himself, caressing his own shoulders, and kokichi blinks, and kokichi laughs.

 

he sprawls out a little on the stretcher, kicking one of kiyo’s legs over the side as he does, and flops back, hands behind his head. ‘ wow! you’ve gotta be as naive as gonta, huh? or - or maybe kaede. trying to find the good in everyone. ‘ he rolls onto his front, rests his face on both hands and blows a raspberry at the other boy. ‘ but nope! i’m just evil to the core, you know. ‘

 

kiyo just closes his eyes again, letting the leg kokichi kicked off just dangle there, and that irritates kokichi for some reason - he wants a _reaction_ out of him, dammit. he reaches out slowly, about to poke kiyo in the leg, before the anthropologist speaks again, with something like . . . amusement? in the low tones of his voice.

 

‘ kokichi, do i really seem like someone to have abject faith in the good of people? ‘

 

‘ i don’t know, ‘ kokichi says, and means it. ‘ you say everything is beautiful, don’t you? maybe you believe everything is good, too. ‘

 

korekiyo’s elbow rests in one hand, the other pointing slightly, as if about to lecture. ‘ they’re very different things, you know. that’s where the concept of postwar art or monuments comes from. the idea of something beautiful resting in something . . . cruel or ugly. the capacity for humans to be both benevolent and terrible is what i find beauty in. the inherent nature of choice, and of perception - many actions themselves can’t be deemed in terms of good or evil. ‘

 

_what about being a serial killer? what about forcing a bunch of high schoolers into a prison and forcing them to murder each other? what about using someone else to strangle someone for you, and sentencing them to their death for it? are those black and white enough for you?_

 

but it seems kiyo isn’t done, yet. his arms cross again, hugging himself. ‘ at least . . . that _was_ the view i had. given . . . recent events, i’m not sure how much of that perspective i’m going to maintain. ‘

 

if nothing else, talking seemed to have made him feel a little better, kokichi notes. shuichi had mentioned in passing that kiyo had been delighted to have a “student” in him, the visible part of his face lighting up with elation every time shuichi came back and asked more about seances or mythology or kiyo himself. and there’s a faint ghost ( ha ) of that still there, as he explains things to kokichi.

 

maybe in another life, he muses, he might’ve made a good teacher.

 

‘ well, ‘ he says, crossing one leg over the other and chewing on the pen again, ‘ you helped me stay outta their way, you know. just think of it as me paying you back. ‘

 

that earns him a little bit of a raised eyebrow, and he can’t really blame the other boy. he hadn’t _really_ seemed like the sort to care about fairness that much, in the game. but what other truth-lie could he have given him? that he hadn’t needed it? that he’d picked it up in part because he’d been reminded of the unnerving folklorist? that it really didn’t matter that much?

 

all true in part, and false in others.

 

it’s why he hates being called a liar. ( kaito and maki and some of the others, he knows, would scoff at that. but it’s _true._ lies are only complicated versions of the truth, one way or another. things _aren’t_ black and white, or true or false. not really. )

 

‘ is all of that from them? ‘ kiyo asks, nodding at the small pile of odds and ends kokichi had dumped on the bed by now.

 

he shrugs. ‘ mostly. some of it’s from our lovely fellow classmates. ‘

 

‘ is there a reason you have for taking it? ‘

 

‘ do i need one? ‘

 

‘ i suppose it’s not . . . entirely surprising to me that you’re a kleptomaniac, ‘ kiyo murmurs, before shrugging, a heavy movement, like he was supporting the weight of the world. ‘ i don’t . . . have anything you could take. ‘

 

‘ oh, i know! ‘ kokichi chirps. ‘ i checked already. ‘

 

he considers how wise it might be to mention part of the truth to kiyo. in the end - the anthropologist is even more actively antisocial than he is, after all. who was going to listen to _him?_ at least with kokichi, there might be some lingering guilt that made them tolerate his presence.

 

‘ i figured it might make sense for the two of us to hang out, too. ‘

 

kiyo looks curious at that, so kokichi huffs out and continues with the explanation, forcing a cheerful grin on. ‘ if i had any money to bet, kiyo, i’d say we’re probably everyone’s two leaaaaast favorite people right now, y’know? ‘

 

kiyo deflates, just a little. seems like it might be a sore spot. kokichi folds his arms behind his head, and tries to ignore the soreness that screams out there from just-removed needles or ivs. ‘ and honestly - even _before_ you said you were a serial killer and in love with your sister and before _i_ said i was the mastermind and got gonta to kill miu, i feel like that was true. we’re just not very likeable people, kiyo! ‘

 

kiyo has that analytical sort of look to him again, pressing his hand to one side of his face. ‘ i’m not sure that’s . . . quite true, ‘ he says, in a raspy sort of voice you could mistake for the desert wind, ‘ with your title. there have to be people who trust you, yes? even if you seem to not . . . care for that here. ‘

 

kokichi wags a finger at him accusingly. ‘ hey! if you don’t stop trying to psychoanalyze me, i’ll have to do it right back, you know. ‘

 

kiyo looks as though he’s going to speak for a moment, but tips his head in assent, hair falling in his face again. ‘ _who wants to hear about brave deeds when he’s ashamed of his own? ‘_ he murmurs, after a minute, speaking to himself again. ‘ _and who likes an open, honest tale from someone he’s deceiving?_ ‘

 

kokichi blinked. ‘ what? ‘

 

‘ it’s . . . nothing. something that reminded me of you. ‘ kiyo huffs out a sigh, thin shoulders curling around him as though skin and bones would be enough to protect him from the world. ‘ you’re . . . right. but what are you trying to _achieve,_ kokichi? you don’t . . . seem like someone to act without an end goal in sight. ‘

 

kokichi dons all his childish grace, leaning forwards on his knees and beaming radiantly, extending one small, pale hand to the other boy, eyes alight. ‘ well, i wanna be friends, of course! ‘

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is just going to be a rambly mess filled with watership down quotes. just so you all know what you've signed up for


	4. Chapter 4

time . . . now there was a curious thing. how easily the human perception of it changed; and really, who was to say it could be measured objectively, anyway? for every year you grew older, a day grew just that much exponentially shorter as compared to the number of days you had already lived through.

 

perhaps, korekiyo muses, that’s why they had used high schoolers for this killing game. clever enough and brutal enough to kill, to be manipulated to kill, to try and _hide_ their crimes, but young enough that the few weeks they’d be trapped in there would be longer to them than they would be to an adult. ( though, given it had been virtual reality - had that timespan even been real, either? perhaps when they were finally allowed to see a calendar or given more information, they would learn the whole ordeal had only taken two days. )

 

in much the same way, the dramatic executions they had been shown seemed to only take a few minutes.

 

and perhaps that was the case for akamatsu. strangulation if done properly could take less than two minutes. however, cases of failed hangings he had read about could take anywhere from twenty minutes and two hours. how long did it take to play der flohwalzer, typically? about a minute? so perhaps she hadn’t suffered much.

 

kirumi, too - the fatigue observable on her face and repeated frequency of the thorn pricks through her gloves led kiyo to believe that she had been climbing for somewhere around half an hour. though perhaps less, given that blood loss from the saws and the initial run might have added to the fatigue on her face? ( they had all cheered for her, as though there had ever been a chance she could escape. he had, too. though he should have known better than anyone else that death cannot be outrun, there was something beautiful in the struggle to live, fighting until the very last. )

 

was it beautiful?

 

yes, no. the resolve she had was tragic and beautiful. her selfless devotion was. the crime she had committed, the undignified scream she had let out as she ran, the way she snapped out like a cornered animal when they had started to close in on her - they were more pitiful than beautiful.

 

interesting. he’d had yet to see her here.

 

and then his own.

 

to their . . . observers, maybe it had seemed like three minutes or so for the entire thing to go down.

 

but being boiled alive - he supposes it had fit him. he _had_ always particularly liked the story of goemon ishikawa. variations of the story exist - in some, he plunged his son into the bottom of the pot to kill him as swiftly as possible, a quick way out, in others he held him above his head until he expired, and then either the son followed him or managed to live.

 

 _her_ face. handfuls of salt blistering his skin, causing it to slough off him- that part had taken only seconds. he imagines a twist to the story, then - the son nearly survives, gasps out for air, and the father, the spirit of the father, enraged because his son was daring to survive while he had not, pushed his head back under.

 

goemon wouldn’t do that, he thinks. so why did _she_ . . . ?

 

he didn’t think he had any stories to explain that. or . . . he didn’t dare touch the thought. he swears hecan still feel _her_ lurking there, in the back ofhis mind, and he worries if he reaches too deeply into the dark recesses of his head, she will snap out again, like certain venemous snakes or spiders. and it would be his fault, too - you should know better than to stick your hand into the dark.

 

anyway. anyway.

 

his own execution, including his dubious exorcism, had taken about two and a half hours by his own estimation.

 

it’s an impossible memory to shake. how are you supposed to forget the feeling of skin beginning to fuse with cloth beginning to fuse with rope? or the blindness that the steam eventually induced, feeling what could be tears or blood or possibly vitreous fluid running down his cheeks soon after he lost his vision? how are you supposed to forget the smell of yourself cooking, subcutaneous layers of fat breaking down to the increasing heat?

 

( he doesn’t know whether the heat or the cold feels worse, now - it had felt cold towards the end, before his head submerged. he wraps himself in layers of blankets just to tear them off himself later, suddenly in a cold sweat, and pulls himself out of the way of the air conditioners. )

 

he and kokichi are the same age. he thinks. he’s not actually sure how old the other boy is.

 

he does know they’re both older than their years should make them. for all his jokes and smiles and childish voice, kokichi has the hardened eyes of someone who’s seen enough to turn them bitter. so he lies. korekiyo uses words people don’t know, tells stories they’ve never heard, speaks in a lilting voice that hides his youth. obfuscates his age behind layers and layers and layers, of clothing and character both.

 

( he wonders how much is _her_ influence. if this body belongs to the both of them, is it an adult? somewhere between the two of them? if she were alive today, she would be twenty-four. does that mean their body is twenty, bearing the two of them? )

 

time. time. time. how long have they been in here? there are no windows, no clocks, no calendars. like they’re intentionally trying to hide it from them.

 

friendship was another curious thing.

 

most of his experience of it was with _her_ friends. young women of upstanding character that she wanted to be able to spend time with, forever, in . . . whatever state she existed in now. he wonders if kokichi thought that part of it through. one corner of his mouth tips upwards, a little bit too late, delayed reaction.

 

‘ kokichi . . . you’re aware of how my sister and i tend to define _friends,_ yes? ‘

 

he shrugs, all carefully-placed loose limbs sprawling to look careless, one knee bouncing in youthful impatience, and offers kiyo a grin, a little bit less beaming and a little more wry. ‘ hey, maybe i’m asking you to put me out of my misery. ‘

 

‘ that . . . doesn’t quite seem like your way, ‘ kiyo muses, one of their hands coming up to caress their cheek, and he doesn’t quite understand the funny sort of look that crosses kokichi’s face at that. a little bitter, a little resentful - but also the expression of someone who was in on a joke you weren’t. a character aware of the dramatic irony they were being dealt, perhaps.

 

still, he didn’t know the source of it.

 

 _you haven’t gotten a conclusive account of what happened after we left the game, korekiyo,_ she whispers to him, their thumb brushing over their cheekbone like a gentle caress. _he may be an annoyance, but there isn’t anyone here who trusts you enough to speak with you. he is dishonest, but we will at least be able to guess where he is lying._

 

‘ maybe so, ‘ he murmurs, more to placate _her_ than anything else, before he remembers someone else is in the room with them. hopefully kokichi will overlook it. it’s not as if either of them are at the peak of mental health at the moment.

 

he scarcely wants to entertain the thought, frightened almost that she’ll overhear it, but . . . he believes he may be lonely. ( _why would you be, she_ would ask, if _she_ knew, _when you have me with you all the time?_ ) their relationship was many things, but he was never her friend, and he has accepted that long ago.

 

an anthropologist’s job is to _observe,_ not to participate.

 

 _if nothing else_ , he thinks carefully to _her_ , to avoid speaking to _her_ aloud in front of kokichi, _he’s an incredibly interesting person to observe. if he is genuine about this, it will give us the chance to study him further._ justification.

 

he wonders when he had to start lying to _her._

 

friendship is never something that stakes itself as high in mythology as romantic or familial or nationalistic love, but it certainly has its places. melos and selinuntius. gilgamesh and enkidu. ruth and naomi. damon and pythias. huehuecóyotl and xolotl.

 

in those stories, there’s so often an element of sacrifice. an all-or-nothing relationship. ( not that he’s ever known any other kind. )

 

‘ well, as long as you’re aware what you might be signing up for, ‘ he murmurs to kokichi.

 

kokichi wags a finger at him as though he’s scolding a child, giving him a challenging look. ‘ well! you’re still alive, aren’t you? ‘

 

‘ debatable, ‘ korekiyo murmurs, arms embracing his shoulders. ‘ i _did_ die, after all. given our limited range of motion, we have no way of proving that this _isn’t_ what comes after death, though it may not align with any traditional views of the afterlife. ‘

 

kokichi just _looked_ at him blankly for a moment before worrying his thumbnail with his teeth. ‘ suddenly i remember why i didn’t talk to you so much, ‘ he mutters, and kiyo is unsure whether or not he was meant to have heard that. ‘ alright, so, you’re still more alive than your sister, riiiiiight? you can say that much, at least? ‘

 

he doesn’t answer that, picking at one of the elastic bands affixing the medical mask to his face, letting it gently snap against his skin, a repetitive but oddly soothing motion.

 

‘ i don’t _want_ to be friends with your sister, i mean. ‘ kokichi snaps out, apparently having lost his patience for the ambulatory way korekiyo’s thoughts tended to make their way through his head, more inclined to straying off the intended path than most. ‘ just you. so you don’t have to kill me. ‘

 

‘ i . . . don’t think sister would _want_ to be friends with you, ‘ he states honestly, looking kokichi up and down, and _she_ grumbles a note of assent in his head.

 

kokichi blinks at that as though he’s unsure whether or not to be offended. ( a reasonable reaction. at least he seems to be taking it in his stride, rather than trying to convince him that _she_ isn’t real, or that _she_ is just a figment of his imagination, though that seems uncomfortably more and more possible of late. that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think he’s crazy, but at least he has the decency of mind to play along with his beliefs. ) ‘ what, am i not good enough for her? ‘ he frames his cheeks with his pale hands, batting his eyelashes.

 

‘ no, ‘ kiyo says dryly. ‘ _aside_ from the fact that she only associates with women, she does only associate with people of virtuous character. a group you have never had any qualms with happily dissociating from. ‘

 

kokichi blows another raspberry at him for that. he does look curious though, sitting back up and tipping his head to the side. evaluating him. ‘ can i speak with her, though? ‘

 

kiyo tries not to let his aversion to that show immediately. he knows it’s likely a futile endeavor; while he considers himself to be quite the liar, as he’s had to be to hide some of the many secrets the two of them had kept, he doesn’t make a livelihood of it like kokichi does. absently, he brushes the hacked-short ends of his hair. ‘ i would . . . prefer you didn’t. ‘

 

the searching look only intensifies, for a fraction of a second, before it’s wiped completely away, kokichi giving him a sunny grin again. ‘ okay! but if i can later, i wanna. ‘

 

kiyo decides, for what little remains of his own sanity, that it might not be better to dig too deep as to kokichi’s reasoning for right now. _don’t stick your hand into the dark without knowing what lives there._ ‘ there is still one thing i don’t understand. ‘

 

‘ hmmmm? ‘ kokichi hums, drawing out the sound as he blinks at korekiyo, who knits spindly fingers together.

 

‘ why you’re approaching _me_ with this offer. ‘

 

kokichi shrugs, a nonchalant sort of thing. ‘ for all you know, i’ve approached everyone else with it, too. ‘

 

‘ i don’t think you’re telling the truth. ‘

 

‘ you’re right! ‘ he sings out, with another grin, kicking out his legs. ‘ but you aren’t the _only_ one. ‘

 

korekiyo takes that information in stride, inclining his head slightly. ‘ fair enough. as i understand it, friendship isn’t an exclusionary thing. ‘

 

‘ but as for why _you,_ i guess . . . well, we’re both the bad guys, y’know? ‘ kokichi asks cheerfully. ‘ or we might as well be. if this _was_ all a story for someone, we’d be the villains. though i guess i’m kinda more of a dashing antihero, don’tcha think? ‘

 

‘ that’s . . . certainly one way you could describe it, ‘ kiyo says delicately. ‘ not, however, the words i’d use. ‘

 

kokichi’s cheeks puff out. ‘ you’re so mean! i’m just trying to be nice, and this is how you’re gonna treat me? maybe i don’t want to be friends after all! ‘

 

he just shrugs at that, finding himself . . . mostly apathetic. not as much as he would want to be, unfortunately, but the mask does help cover what little connection he may have been forming to the idea. ‘ suit yourself. you were the one to raise the idea in the first place. ‘

 

he pouts a little at that. ‘ so you _don’t_ wanna be friends after all? ‘

 

‘ i don’t . . . particularly care one way or the other. i’m happy to talk with you again, if you want, but if you don’t ever talk to me again, i suspect i would be just as content. ‘

 

for a moment, there’s that deeply evaluating look on kokichi’s face again, but it’s less than a blink, less than a heartbeat. he doesn’t allow the serious parts of him to linger, it seems. ‘ well that’s no fun. how about this? ‘ he asks, and sticks a pinkie in kiyo’s direction, the anthropologist blinking at the sudden invasion of his space. ‘ you agree to this, and i’ll steal one thing for you. ‘

 

kiyo just continues to blink at the hand extended to him. ‘ that tradition started here, ‘ he murmurs, half to himself. ‘ with the yakuza - if a deal was broken, the pinkie finger would actually be removed. in turn, the practice of ritually removing portions of the little finger is called _yubitsume,_ which originated with the bakuto, their predecessors, because of the difficulty it would lead to in swordsmanship - it was a very serious promise. ‘

 

with that, he links their fingers together, taking a small amount of schadenfreude in the _look_ kokichi gives him as he does. ‘ if you’re going to steal something for me, a notebook and writing utensil would be my first preference, ‘ he says, calmly.

 

* * *

 

 

_**kiyo currently in the au** _


	5. Chapter 5

it’s hard to sleep in this place.

 

sure, he’d been in prison. if he did really need to lose consciousness for a few hours to keep himself standing, he was capable of that, but it was restless sleep, one eye kept open. a habit that had built up there with the possibility that someone might hurt him, or try and kill him.

 

it didn’t show any signs of stopping now that he was two doors down from the woman who actually _had._

 

not that he blamed her, really. he was aware she’d taken advantage of his position, but he’d known that from the moment she’d looked at him before she shared what her motive had been. had known it even more so when he found out what _she_ had to live for, and weighed it against the black empty screen of his own, and figured it was for the best he turn his back to her.

 

he knew the fierce determination in her eyes. she was going to try and get out of here. she _would_ kill, one way or another. might as well give the rest of them a chance for it.

 

but that didn’t mean he trusted her near where he slept.

 

apparently he was one of the ones to recover fastest. lucky him. means he knew where the line was, when it came to institutionalization and how much suicidal ideation it was safe to show before they stuck you in solitary or something else, and they knew he knew that. knew he wasn’t going to try anything anytime soon. so he got back his hat and his candy cigarettes, which - he won’t thank the bastards for, but he’s grateful to have. if they were _real_ cigarettes, his lungs would look like raisins now from the pack a day he went through.

 

as it is, he might just get cavities.

 

he keeps to himself, but it seems like that might be true for all of them - angie pops her head into rooms sometimes, shouting out a cheerful _hello!_ regardless of who’s in there ( ryoma feels half-guilty for laughing about it, but he’s glad he was there for the time she did that to the door of a board meeting. ) rantaro, when he doesn’t seem to be in a daze, walks around too, sitting and chatting about nothing with each of them, with his odd little smile.

 

he tries to imagine going through all of this five times over, and doesn’t envy rantaro his survivor’s perk.

 

 _it’s easier when i don’t remember,_ rantaro tells him once, when they’re in the rec room together, ryoma somehow having been talked into rantaro painting his nails a deep inky black. his voice is . . . mellow, as ever, and he still smiles. _sometimes everything comes back at once, and sometimes i don’t even remember who you are. any of you. but there’s something familiar to not knowing. i suppose after long enough, your brain gets used to it._

 

he’s been to therapy enough before in the past that he knows what to say to keep them satisfied, keep himself under the radar. demotivated without being depressed. shaken by the killing game, but not about to knock out half a guard’s teeth like tenko or try and escape, getting stuck in the vents, like himiko, or try and claw his arms bloody, like kiyo.

 

in a detached sort of way, he feels bad for them.

 

they’re his friends. he supposes. but he isn’t sure he has it in him to care about other people, especially people like _this,_ all of them only half-sure of who they are, and walking a very fine line between sanity and losing whatever marbles they have left.

 

maybe once they start getting better, he can hope for them.

 

at least group activities aren’t being pushed on them all. ( yet. he’s sure they’ll work their way up to it once a few more of them have their heads screwed on tight enough for it. ) the one time they’re all forced together is their movie nights, catching up on the filming of the killing game - after that first night, it’s restricted to one hour sessions before they turn it off, but still.

 

kaede died onscreen a few nights ago. there’s been some filler, so to speak, but ryoma knows damn well enough that he’ll get to watch himself die, soon. two nights ago, last session, they’d watched the insect meet and greet, and he couldn’t stop himself from snorting, watching the chaos all play out onscreen - he’d missed it.

 

he had looked over at kokichi, the little shit, who had a smug look plastered on his face while they watched insects bury himiko, and noticed that he was sitting by kiyo, now. not exactly a combination he’d seen coming, but he supposed it meant kokichi would be bothering someone _else._

 

no such luck now.

 

the two of them are sat in front of a desk in their hospital gowns like kids sitting in the principal’s office - kokichi in a wheelchair, swinging his legs idly - ( ‘ chronic fatigue and pain may be a symptom for those of you with more . . . destructive deaths, ‘ one of the workers had said, almost carrying the words delicately, as if that made them any better. ) waiting for _some_ official or another.

 

there’s several loud smacking sounds as kokichi - what the hell _was_ he doing anyway?

 

ryoma just shoots him a look, and kokichi grins widely. ‘ one of the interns had a pack of gum in their pocket, ‘ he says, one cheek bulging out. ‘ but they’ve started taking back stuff i steal from them. ‘ with a little flourish, he reaches into his mouth and pulls out a gigantic wad of gum about the size and sliminess of a small mutant banana slug.

 

‘ that’s disgusting, ‘ ryoma says, shaking his head, but he can’t hide a soft snort. ‘ so you’re chewing the whole pack at once out of spite? ‘

 

the smacking resumes as kokichi shoves the giant wad of gum back into his mouth, jaw working. ‘ mmmmmhm! ‘ he hums, looking very pleased with himself. ‘ you know what they say. spite is the best medicine. ‘

 

‘ pretty sure that ain’t how the saying goes, kid. ‘

 

‘ well then, it _should_ be,‘ kokichi fires back, blowing a bubble large enough that he has to peel the thin membrane of gum off the tip of his nose, and ryoma has to give him that. one of the few reasons he’d never actually gone around to offing himself is because he wasn’t going to give the people who wanted him dead the satisfaction.

 

the door opens with a little bit of force, and a clearly frustrated man walks in, smiling at the two of them when he sees them. ryoma and kokichi exchange a brief glance, kokichi rolling his eyes exaggeratedly - the smile was faker than anything even _he_ did or said.

 

‘ well. it’s good to meet you two boys, ‘ the man says, taking up the large seat on the other side of the desk and opening a slim laptop, busily typing away at the keys, pulling up a few different things, judging by the light reflected off his glasses. ‘ do you know why you’re here? ‘

 

kokichi shifts in his seat and, with some effort, rests his legs up on the desk, folding his arms behind his head. ‘ of course! ‘ he cracks his gum through his teeth. ‘ you wanna join my secret organization! ‘ he taps a pale finger against his chin, pretending to look the man over, and pulling a face. ‘ sorrrrrry. we’ll review your application again and all, but you just don’t cut it! i have very high standards for the people i let in. ‘

 

a muscle twitches in the man’s face, and ryoma has to look down and away to keep from snorting.

 

looking for some sort of reprieve, apparently, the man turned towards him with a little bit of a pleading look. ‘ what about you, mr. hoshi? ‘

 

bastard wasn’t going to get it from him. ryoma just pulled out another candy cigarette, stuck it between his teeth, and shrugged.

 

the man set his glasses down on the desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘ alright, ‘ he says, a moment later, polishing his glasses on his shirt briefly before setting them back onto his face. ‘ you two are both here because you’ve caught our interest. ‘

 

ryoma can’t help the disgusted face he pulls at that.

 

kokichi just _looks_ at the man, feet still up on the desk, and begins blowing a bubble that swells to about the size of his face before popping, leaving a thin pink layer of candy over his entire face. he doesn’t bother to take it off before saying ‘ what kiiiiinda interest? cause if it’s anything pervy, i don’t want anything to do with it. ask miu! ‘

 

the man looks very much like he wants to rub his eyes again as he watches kokichi meticulously peel the gum off of his face. ‘ no. ‘ he steeples his fingers. ‘ you two were both projected to be some of the last to recover and act stable, and yet you’re the closest two to having close to standard levels of behavior. now it might be a front, but the important thing is that you both know how to act, and given from our analysis of both of you, it seems unlikely you’ll hurt yourself or others. as such, we have a proposition for you. ‘

 

kokichi grinned at the phrasing, opening his mouth to say something again, but ryoma took a modicum of pity on the man talking to them and kicked the side of his wheelchair - not enough to be hard, but enough to send the wheel lazily rolling back enough that kokichi’s feet no longer reached the desk. ‘ hey! ‘ he protested, giving ryoma a pout at that.

 

‘ what is it? ‘ he asks the man, deciding it might just be for the best to ignore kokichi for the time being.

 

‘ you two, if you want, can move out of the hospital to more permanent and . . . less restricted housing early. we were planning on moving everyone at once, but given that everyone’s rate of recovery seems to be different, we thought it might be worth it to consider staggering you. ‘

 

‘ and? ‘ ryoma asks.

 

‘ what do you mean? ‘

 

‘ you know what i mean, ‘ he says impassively. he was just a warden in a more expensive suit, when it came down to it. ‘ there’s a catch, isn’t there? ‘

 

he sighs, examining well-manicured nails with a bored expression. ‘ well, once the group was proven stable, you’re contracted to conduct interviews. moving out would mean you two would start the press gauntlet ahead of everyone else, as well. ‘

 

kokichi grins brightly and says . . . something. like he’s ticking things off on his fingers. it doesn’t seem to be in one language, either, bouncing from short phrase to short phrase, until the man gestures impatiently, cutting him off, and looking to ryoma.

 

‘ no thanks, ‘ ryoma says after a beat of considering it. kokichi takes a second longer, but that’s because he’s tugging one end of his giant hunk of gum, the other caught between his teeth, and pulling it out as far as his arm could reach, before tipping his head back and letting it drop into his open mouth.

 

‘ nah, ‘ the supreme leader says, once he finally sits back up. he spreads out his arms. ‘ i’m a leader of evil, jeez! if i leave here, everyone might start plotting behind my back! i’m disappointed in you. ‘

 

the man sighs, but doesn’t sound too surprised. ‘ i see. will you two consider it, at least? ‘

 

ryoma shrugs. he doesn’t trust the offer, and he doesn’t trust the man, but he’s been in this sort of situation long enough to know when to state a clear and firm _no,_ and when to make it seem like you were still open-minded.

 

the man’s phone buzzed, and he glanced at it before standing up. ‘ well. if you two change your minds, i’ll be coming back here this time tomorrow. now - some of your doctors are here to bring you back to your rooms if you want to, ‘ he states, gesturing with a sweep of his arm towards the door.

 

‘ actually, ‘ kokichi says, pulling a wide-eyed vulnerable look for a moment and fiddling with his hands, ‘ do you think we can stay in here for just a little bit longer? i wanna get a chance to think about this with ryoma alone. ‘

 

the man considers this for a moment before nodding. ‘ you’ve got fifteen minutes, ‘ he says, before checking his watch and heading efficiently to the door, kokichi giving him a grin and a wave, both cutting off the moment the door shut.

 

ryoma looks at kokichi. ‘ that was a lie, wasn’t it. ‘

 

kokichi snorts. ‘ of course, ‘ he says, hopping off his wheelchair and walking around the desk, beginning to pull open drawers and rummage through them.

 

‘ what were you saying earlier? with all the languages? ‘

 

kokichi beamed. ‘ kiyo taught me how to go say ‘go fuck yourself’ in sixteen different languages, in exchange for me trying to find him some pencils with erasers. ‘

 

against his better judgement, ryoma snorts at that. kokichi makes a triumphant noise, pulling out a handful of mechanical pencils from the desk and holding them up like a prize for a moment before tucking them into his smock . . . somewhere. somehow. it wasn’t like they really had pockets. he cracked his gum again thoughtfully and sat at the man’s chair, opening the laptop that had been left on the desk.

 

‘ hey, did you know? it’s a friday, ‘ kokichi says, scrolling briefly, eyes scanning the screen.

 

‘ huh, ‘ ryoma says. ‘ what’re you looking for? ‘

 

‘ just looking at the list he was. seeing who else is low risk and high risk or whatever - they’ve got summaries for all of us, ‘ he says, and ryoma gets the sense he’s . . . actually being honest. ‘ hey, hey! yours says that they might try therapy animals! ‘

 

‘ really? ‘ ryoma asks, caught by surprise at that.

 

‘ mmmmhm. ‘ kokichi hums, before his eyes flick to the clock, and he closes the laptop again. they’ve only got a minute or two of allotted time left. kokichi looks as though he’s going to make his way to the door, before stopping short.

 

if this were a cartoon, ryoma would be able to see the lightbulb appear over his head as he suddenly grinned, and he internally groaned, crunching the end of the candy cigarette between his back teeth. ‘ what? ‘

 

‘ oh, nothing, ‘ kokichi says, far too casually, but he walks back around the desk and moves the computer again, setting it to one side, before pulling out the gigantic wad of gum from his mouth and carefully setting it on the desk where the laptop had been, flattening it down with the heels of his palms, and then setting the laptop back on top of it, pressing both hands to the laptop lid and standing on the chair so all of his weight pushes the laptop to the table, presumably flattening the gum under it even more.

 

ryoma shakes his head. ‘ that’s disgusting, ‘ he says, biting back a bit of amusement.

 

kokichi grins, unapologetic. ‘ what, are you going to stop me? ‘

 

‘ never said that. just said it was disgusting. ‘

 

‘ fair enough, ‘ kokichi says with a shrug, wiping his palms on his gown before sitting down on his wheelchair again. ‘ but he said he’s not coming back here till tomorrow. that’ll be a nasty surprise for him, then. ‘

 

ryoma . . . can’t help but snort at the man’s future expense. ‘ like i said. i ain’t gonna stop you. spite is the best medicine, huh? ‘

 

kokichi _was_ a little shit, he decided, fiddling with one end of his candy cigarette, but it could be funny when it was in a harmless enough environment. and not directed towards him. funny how that worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kokichi don't be fucking gross


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw - transphobic slur briefly mentioned, sexual humor a la miu iruma

and kokichi thought _he_ made bad decisions.

 

slowly, now that everyone was awake, and at the very least capable of speaking and occasionally keeping down solid food, the staff had been pushing all of them to reintegrate with each other. ryoma and he had been able to pass on the message of just _what_ they were trying to achieve with that, and as such, they’d mostly been able to slip between the staff’s collective fingers.

 

people left kiyo alone for the most part.

 

as such, kokichi didn’t. it meant that when _he_ wanted to be left alone, he was ensured that privacy - kiyo tended not to talk that much if he didn’t have some sort of anthropological subject to get him going, and he seemed to have a pretty good read on when kokichi didn’t feel like talking, no matter how spirited his voice was. 

 

and he left well enough alone. didn’t look at him like an annoyance or worse, with pity, like kaito or shuichi did, brows drawing together. or like maki and himiko, like they wanted to hate him but weren’t quite sure if they were _allowed_ to, anymore. fuck it. he’d rather they hated him outright than whatever stupid dance they were doing.

 

if he still wasn’t confined to bed or a wheelchair half the time, he’d say as much. but he doesn’t need to slow his recovery down any _more._

 

of course, the problem with having kiyo as a friend was that he was, speaking strictly in technical terms, a mental shitstorm. even leaving aside the biggest hurdles like, oh, the fact that he was apparently an incestuous serial killer, he was still suicidal and talked to himself - or, the ghost of his dead sister he thought was inside of him - and would panic regularly, and it seems like he quite genuinely had never had a friend before.

 

kokichi didn’t feel bad for him. he _didn’t._

 

maybe that was a lie.

 

but whether or not it was, you needed an ally with you, sometimes. he’d learned that lesson after gonta’s execution, when he’d lost the one person who genuinely thought of him as meaning well.

 

that idiot.

 

he didn’t care! he didn’t!

 

that’s a lie.

 

( no murder had always been one of their first and most fundamental rules, and whatever the verdict had been at the end of the day, it was his fault that miu had died, and that gonta had been executed for it. he wasn’t fit to lead them anymore, he - no. no, he couldn’t think like that. you could think yourself in circles for days like that, and he’d done that already. )

 

he and ryoma now were also sort of . . . _friends_ was the wrong term. but ryoma tolerated him, didn’t pity him, and sometimes gave him candy cigarettes, and that was good enough for kokichi. though things might change after they watched past ryoma’s death during their tv nights.

 

a guilty part of him wonders if that was part of why he’d befriended kiyo - he was the one person in here who would have no place to judge him for the things he’d done after the third trial, when he began to become particularly nasty.

 

but this was one of the first group meetings that _wasn’t_ that.

 

why the fuck did so many of them have names that began with k, anyway?

 

they were sitting in a circle, in alphabetical order. kokichi supposes he could have had it _much_ worse - he was sitting in between kirumi and kiyo, while poor tenko had to sit next to angie, who was rocking slightly in her seat, beaming cheerfully.

 

( if he hadn’t been walking by her room the one time she’d been screaming bloody murder, restrained down to her bed and writhing, he would have thought that she hadn’t been affected by the game at all. )

 

there was some counselor that worked here. kokichi was making a point of it to promptly forget her name every time she restated it. her smile was saccharine, the kind of sugary-sweet insincere thousand dollar smile he hated. one of the easiest lies to see through. if you were going to make a smile a lie, at least be convincing at it.

 

‘ anyway! ‘ she said cheerfully, clapping her hands together and getting fourteen dubious looks as she stood up. ‘ today we’re going to take some of the first steps towards working on overcoming some of our issues as a group. has everyone here heard of ‘i feel’ statements? ‘

 

within the group, it seemed that either people _hadn’t_ been through that particular elementary school guidance counselor piece of advice, or they weren’t about to dignify that with a response. maki in particular was giving the woman a frosty glare. if looks could kill, kokichi mused, maki wouldn’t even have ever had to use weapons in her assassinations.

 

not discouraged by their silence, she plowed right on forwards. ‘ the way that this works is that you say ‘name, when you did this, it made me feel this.’ we’re going to go around in a circle twice, with each of you stating something that made you feel bad or that you’re grateful. once from the game, and once during your time here. ‘ she raised a hand. ‘ death, as a topic, is off the table for right now. alright? ‘

 

adults were . . . unbelievably stupid sometimes, kokichi muses, folding his legs up on his wheelchair. what was this possibly even going to accomplish?

 

she smiled again. ‘ does anyone want to go first? ‘

 

dead silence for a moment. kokichi hoped it just stayed this way, and that she just had to give up.

 

but angie stuck her hand up. ‘ oh! angie can! ‘

 

the counselor beamed at her, speaking in a voice like she was talking to a four year old. ‘ that’s very good, angie! please, go ahead! everyone, please give angie your attention. ‘

 

humming happily, angie nodded. ‘ hm . . . oh! maki! when you didn’t listen to what the student council was saying for everyone, it made angie feel frustrated! ‘ her face took on that eerie quality it could have sometimes, eyes oddly intense and face shadowy. ‘ angie felt like you were being selfish, yep yep! ‘

 

kokichi didn’t bother hiding his grin at maki’s stony look.

 

‘ maki . . . ? ‘ the counselor prompted, looking towards the assassin. ‘ do you have something to say to angie? ‘

 

maki crossed her arms. ‘ no. ‘

 

the counselor’s smile became just a little bit more forced. ‘ well! we can’t have that! while you don’t _have_ to apologize, that can always be nice. but what you _do_ need to do in this group is validate the other person’s feelings. if one of these statements is directed at you, you have to at least say ‘thank you for telling me. i can understand why you felt like that. ‘ she smiled expectantly at maki.

 

maki just glared right back.

 

‘ maki. if you refuse to cooperate, this will count as a demerit on your sheet, ‘ she said, suddenly serious. kokichi didn’t _quite_ know the context, but he knew that several of them had different consequences. this probably had something to do with whatever maki’s set discipline was.

 

maki was glaring a hole in the floor. ‘ i understand why you felt that, ‘ she stated finally, her voice making very clear how full of shit she thought the whole thing was. for once, kokichi found himself agreeing with maki, honestly.

 

angie clapped her hands again. ‘ yes, yes! atua will forgive you, maki. perhaps we can even begin the student council again here! ‘

 

everyone immediately looked a little bit more uncomfortable.

 

the counselor cleared her throat, trying desperately to turn the group back on track away from the inevitable trainwreck this conversation was doomed to become. ‘ thank you very much for going first, angie. gonta! you’re next! ‘

 

gonta hesitated for a moment, fiddling with his hands. ‘ kokichi. ‘

 

kokichi’s stomach sunk, just a little. he couldn’t look him in the eyes.

 

‘ when you lie to gonta about what gonta did or didn’t do, or promised to do, or what other people feel . . . it makes gonta feel bad. not smart. like gonta is - like _i am_ remembering things all wrong. ‘

 

kokichi doesn’t look at him, but nods. ‘ . . . i understand why you felt like that, ‘ he says after a moment, aware of everyone’s eyes burning into him. he would usually be irreverent about this, joke about apologizing, but he think he owed gonta, at least, a moment of genuinity. ‘ and . . . i’m sorry. ‘

 

‘ you lyin’ again, dickface? ‘ miu calls out from where she’s sitting, scowling at him.

 

‘ shut your big mouth, miu, ‘ he snapped back defensively. habit. ‘ this isn’t blowjob therapy, you can keep your fucking - ‘

 

‘ _alright, ‘_ the counselor cut in, smile looking decidedly frustrated now. ‘ moving on. himiko? ‘

 

himiko mumbled something, staring down at her lap, before frowning and looking back up. ‘ well . . . tenko and angie. when you two kept arguing, it made me feel . . . bad. ‘specially when it was about me. ‘

 

‘ i’m sorry, ‘ tenko says, almost immediately, while angie frowns and hums.

 

‘ angie? ‘ the counselor prompts.

 

‘ atua understands your feelings! ‘ angie says, suddenly bright and sunny again.

 

the counselor seemingly decides to cut her losses and let that count, looking at the next person in the circle. ‘ kaede? would you like to go? ‘

 

kaede’s jaw set firmly and she nodded. ( in a way, kokichi was almost envious of her. she ended up a martyr, almost. died in the first trial - didn’t have to see when things _really_ started going to shit, didn’t have to deal with her friends dying around her or the slow realization they were being watched. but she was still praised, and it was in _her_ memory that many of them had aspired to keep the group together. even though they’d known her for . . . what, a week? ) she rested one fist in her other hand. ‘ kokichi! when you kept trying to get under my skin, i felt frustrated. ‘

 

it takes more energy than it should, and he curses the fatigue that sets in sometimes, but he leans back, arms folded behind his head carelessly. ‘ neeheehee! but, kaede, isn’t that the point of trying to get under someone’s skin? ‘ before the counselor says anything, he spreads his arms. ‘ i understand how you feel, i guess. cause i was kinda going for that all along. ‘ he pressed a finger to his lips. ‘ i _am_ evil, after all. ‘

 

not that that had _really_ been it. but if they kept trying to make their way through the sewer, what little motivation they had would be lost. someone had to convince them to give up the ghost, and kokichi was willing to play the villain.

 

kaede frowned at him, but the counselor was moving right along. kokichi grins, just a little. seems like she finally was starting to understand what a mess this was fated to be. ( he suspects that kaede’s comment isn’t going to be the last directed at him. he did manage to annoy nearly everyone, after all. )

 

kaito stands without being prompted. ‘ ryoma! when you started talkin’ like that, all fatalistic and shit, saying that your life didn’t matter . . . well, that made me feel really annoyed. you can’t just throw out your life like that! ‘ he pounds his fists together with his spiel wrapping up.

 

ryoma grunts, tugging his hat down a little to shade his eyes. ‘ i get it, ‘ he says bluntly, and nothing else.

 

kirumi’s hands fold neatly in her lap. kokichi has . . . mixed feelings about her. she tried to kill them all, and she actively _did_ kill ryoma. but she also cared. or at least did a damn good job of faking it. he supposes they’re kind of foils in that way - he pretends not to care, while she pretends she does. ‘ kokichi. ‘

 

of course.

 

‘ when you kept calling me ‘mom’, i felt . . . exasperated, mostly, ‘ she says, looking at him.

 

he pulls a childish pout, grabbing onto her sleeve, sticking out his lower lip and calling up a few tears. ‘ m-mom? you don’t want me to call you that anymore? ‘ he sniffs once, dramatically. ‘ i _guess_ i understand how you feel . . . ‘

 

she sighs, but doesn’t push the matter, and he lets go.

 

which means it’s . . . hm. it’s his turn, then. he chews his thumbnail thoughtfully, before brightening up. ‘ hey, hey, hey maki! when you shot me, it made me feel not that great, ‘ he says casually.

 

the counselor gives him a disapproving look. ‘ we said talking about death was off-limits. ‘

 

he thought she’d say that, and he holds up a hand. ‘ buuuuuut, she didn’t kill me with that, riiiight? so technically it’s not! ‘ she gives him a look, and he shrugs, folding his hands behind his head again. ‘ alright, so maybe . . . hey maki! when you tried to strangle me, that also really kinda hurt my feelings. ‘

 

the counselor seemed to be fighting off the beginnings of a migraine, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘ kokichi . . . ‘

 

‘ not that, either? ‘ he asks, feigning a distraught voice. ‘ hmm . . . alright, i guess, then - hey miu, whenever you act like a slut, it makes me feel - ‘

 

‘ _ALRIGHT,_ ‘ the counselor called out hurriedly before he could finish the sentence, and kokichi grins. ‘ let’s . . . let’s move on. kokichi, i . . . ‘ she shook her head, apparently just giving up. ‘ nevermind. ‘

 

he’s going to count that as a victory.

 

kiyo looks . . . deeply uncomfortable, dipping his head so his recently cropped hair falls to conceal his eyes, that and the mask almost entirely cloaking his face. ‘ . . . may i pass? ‘

 

‘ you should know better, korekiyo, ‘ she said, in a sickly admonishing tone, and he flinched slightly, hugging his shoulders.

 

‘ i . . . ‘ he considered, still not looking up, and kokichi can’t totally blame him. ( he looks around _for_ him - from an anthropological point of view kiyo might be interested in seeing how all of them did view him, but it was different from being put on the spot. those who died before the trial were more just a little confused or weirded out by him. maki, kaito, miu, and himiko especially were all looking at him with an undiluted disgust, though, which just raised a little more confusion in the group. ) he dug his nails into the meat of his shoulders before seemingly calming enough to speak. ‘ . . . kaito. ‘

 

the self-proclaimed luminary of the stars blinked at that, seemingly not expecting it.

 

‘ when you . . . ‘ kiyo trailed off. kokichi sees one of his nails begin to break skin where it digs into his arm. ‘ when you called me . . . that. it . . . made me feel resentful. ‘ he seemingly wants to leave it at that.

 

kaito, apparently, wouldn’t let it be, frowning with clear confusion. ‘ the hell did i call you? ‘

 

kiyo didn’t answer. kokichi was . . . pretty sure he knew what he was talking about, though. ‘ you called him a tranny, kaito, ‘ he says, a little steel in his voice, and kiyo just keeps looking back down at his lap, and kaito’s still blinking, looking a little confused.

 

‘ yeah, but i didn’t . . . _mean_ anything by it, he’s creepy and acts too girly all the time! especially considering - ‘

 

‘ no bringing up the trials, ‘ kokichi says abruptly, cutting him off. he forces a smile. ‘ wouldn’t wanna spoil that surprise for everyone who wasn’t there, riiight? ‘ and it’s clear this is already enough of a sensitive subject for kiyo _without_ heading into that shitstorm.

 

kaito rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. ‘ i mean . . . i understand how you feel, i guess. sorry? ‘ it’s phrased as a question, like he thinks kiyo might be expecting an apology but isn’t quite sure why he should.

 

‘ just because he killed someone doesn’t mean you can call him slurs, ‘ kokichi says, like he’s talking to a preschooler. there’s a few exchanged glances at the idea kiyo had killed someone from those who hadn’t been there, but none of them looked particularly surprised. ‘ i mean, you killed _me,_ but i’m not about to call you - ‘

 

‘ _ouma,_ ‘ the counselor hisses in warning over the murmuring that broke out over the idea that _kaito_ killed kokichi. he grins at her, unapologetic.

 

shuichi, from where he’s sitting across the circle, subtly mouths _thank you_ to kokichi, and he blinks. that was unexpected. he’d have to figure that one out later. he glances at kiyo as the counselor makes everyone settle down, asking maki to please not direct her statement towards kokichi, seemingly predicting all the ways that could blow up.

 

maki’s nose scrunched up, and she fiddled with one of her ponytails. ‘ kaito - ‘

 

‘ why me again? ‘ he exclaims.

 

‘ do you want to die? ‘ she snaps out at him, seemingly reflexively, before calming. ‘ it’s . . . not bad. i . . . when you started calling me maki roll, i didn’t like it it, but . . . i’m glad you kept doing it. ‘

 

his face softened. ( gross, kokichi thinks, not bothering to hide it as he rolls his eyes. ) ‘ i get it, maki roll, ‘ he says with an easy-going grin, and the ultimate assassin _blushes_ and looks down. unbelievable. ‘ i’m glad you like it. ‘

 

miu stood up without being prompted, pointing at the counselor lady. ‘ hey, cuntselor! i wanna say mine to all of _you!_ the fuck did you do to kiibo? ‘ she crosses her arms. ‘ i mean, i fuckin’ guess . . . when you won’t tell me where my friend is, it makes me feel shitty. ‘

 

the counselor’s eye twitches. just a little, but kokichi can see it. rather than answer miu’s question, she looks to the next person in the circle. ‘ rantaro? ‘ ( ‘ _hey, bitch tits! don’t you fuckin’ ignore me! ‘_ yelled out from miu in the background. )

 

rantaro gives an easygoing smile. always easygoing. ‘ hey, kiyo. when you talked to me about your field work, i felt happy. you seemed like a reliable person. ‘

 

kiyo freezes entirely next to kokichi.

 

‘ korekiyo? ‘ the counselor prompts gently. ‘ what do you have to say to rantaro? ‘

 

kiyo makes a small choked sound that could _almost_ be interpreted as a thanks. maybe. the counselor waited expectantly for ten seconds, then almost a minute, before deciding that she probably wasn’t paid enough to try and drag every single word out of them.

 

ryoma grunted slightly, shifting the candy cigarette to one corner of his mouth while he thinks for a second. ‘ . . . shuichi. thanks for coming to talk to me a few times. you made me realize i’ve still got a ways to go. ‘ he tugs at his hat slightly. ‘ which is . . . better than thinking i’m going nowhere. ‘

 

‘ can you phrase that in the form of an ‘i feel’ statem- ‘ the counselor started before seeing the look ryoma was levelling at her and deciding tactfully to just look at shuichi, who was also blinking in surprise.

 

‘ oh! . . . of course, ryoma. i was glad to be able to hang out with you. ‘

 

‘ speaking of, shuichi, it’s your turn! ‘ the counselor cooed.

 

‘ yeah, ‘ kokichi says, unable to help himself, ‘ glad you helped him with that, i don’t think even the ultimate detective could’ve figured that out. ‘

 

he can see ryoma smirking under his pulled-down hat, and a few other people in the circle seem to be hiding snorts despite themselves as the counselor glared at him. shuichi gave an awkward little smile. ‘ . . . kokichi? ‘

 

kokichi, as melodramatically as he could, flung his arms into the air. ‘ me _again?_ i knew i was popular, but this is getting a little ridiculous, don’tcha think, shuichi? ‘

 

truthfully, he’s . . . a little worried what shuichi might say.

 

‘ when we went into your room - ‘

 

kokichi pretends to be shocked, gasping and pressing a hand over his mouth. shuichi sighs, looks down.

 

‘ when we found all the clues you left for us. it made me feel like . . . you really never were as bad as you were trying to seem. ‘

 

‘ interesting theory! ‘ kokichi says, tapping his chin and trying not to walk over there and shake shuichi by the shoulders because _that’s saying too much you stupid detective_. he shrugs. ‘ too bad your deduction’s off on this one! i was really just trying to trick you. guess it really worked, huh? ‘ as lies go, it’s . . . not his strongest. he frames his face with one hand. ‘ maybe that could also be a lie, though! neeheehee! ‘

 

shuichi sighs, but doesn’t push it, and kokichi thanks atua or whatever other fucking gods there might be watching them for that.

 

‘ tenko? ‘ the counselor asks. ‘ you’re the last one. ‘

 

tenko nods slowly. ‘ gonta . . . when you hosted the insect meet and greet, i felt grossed out, ‘ she admits, watching his reaction carefully.

 

gonta for a moment looks angry, before he settles and fidgets in his seat, just looking . . . regretful. ‘ gonta can understand that. gonta knows not everyone likes bugs. should . . . should not have tried to force everyone. ‘

 

the counselor stands up so quickly it almost gives kokichi whiplash. ‘ alright! and with that, let’s call it for today. we can save the second round for our next group session. everyone, you’re free to go. thank you all for your cooperation. ‘ the last sentence is ground out through grit teeth, doing her absolute best to keep faking a smile.

 

there’s a sigh of relief around the room as they all begin to stand up ( or roll their chair out, in kokichi’s case, or stay frozen in place, like kiyo ) and trickle out. kokichi had almost forgotten what it was _like,_ when there were still so many of them.

 

gently, he rests a hand on kiyo’s shoulder, before poking him a few times, hoping to snap him out of wherever he is right now. the smile he gives their group counselor is practically cherubic, the halo almost visible above his head. ‘ thaaaaank you! ‘

 

she storms out, rather than say anything, and kokichi grins at the door swinging shut in her wake.

* * *

_me? continuing to draw kiyo in this au? it's more likely than you think_


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw for . . . a Lot during this chapter, frankly. kiyo very bluntly describes his past, including his relationship with his sister and his suicidal ideation. if that makes you uncomfortable, please skip this chapter. 
> 
> so, just to make things clear - 
> 
> tw: suicidal ideation, incest, dubious consent, emotional manipulation/abuse, drowning, eye trauma

arguably, they’d been taken here for physical therapy, but the moment they’d gotten to the pool, kokichi had shouted ‘ _CANNONBALL!_ ‘, taken off running, and jumped in with all of his clothes still on, and it had just sort of fallen apart from there. ryoma could see him now from where he was sitting. he looked like a drenched rat. a very smug drenched rat.

 

( he wasn’t an idiot. given his rough estimate, tomorrow during their viewing session, they’d be watching . . . well, however his body had been discovered, and some of the investigation there. he figured their wardens at least wanted to get in this one chance at pt before bringing up the drowning case. might spoil the mood for everyone. still, he and - oddly enough - kiyo were both told that they didn’t have to go into the water if they didn’t want to. judging from the look of him, kiyo’d been just as relieved by that as he had. )

 

speaking of, kiyo was standing by the edge of the water now, eyes distant. it looked like he was lost in his own world, vision glassed over a little. ryoma frowned, chewing on the edge of his candy cigarette idly.

 

‘ hey, creep! ‘ it was miu, hands on her hips, an inch away from kiyo. slowly pulling himself out of his reverie, he blinked at her, silent and nonplussed. ‘ yeah, shitguji, i’m talking to you! ‘ he didn’t speak, just . . . looked at her blankly, fingers tightening a little bit on his notebook. ‘ you trying to watch all of us again? ‘ he still didn’t answer, just . . . shifting his vision outwards over the pool again. ‘ _hey! ‘_ miu shouted, jabbing a finger at him. ‘ don’t just ignore me, fuckwad! ‘

 

and yet, he continued to do so, the only sign he’d heard her at all being a slight flinch in his shoulders as she prodded him.

 

she looked like she was fuming, hands on her hips. ‘ oh, what, the siscon creep’s too good to talk to me, huh? the fuck’s your problem? ‘ silence. kiyo’s shoulders drew in on themselves a little more. ‘ oh, fuck you, ‘ she said, hands curling into fists.

 

ryoma could tell what was going to happen a second before it did, watching miu’s eyes glance from kiyo to the pool and back to him. kiyo was still just . . . looking off into the distance. he decided to try and diffuse the situation a little. ‘ hey, miu. i don’t think he feels like talking. just leave him be. ‘

 

she flinched at his words, cowering back. ‘ w-well! who cares what he thinks? ‘ her courage seemingly returned to her and she pointed in _his_ direction now. ‘ stay outta my business, you soap-dropping shithead! ‘ she almost fell on her ass flinching back at the stony look she received for that comment, and . . . it _seemed_ like she was going to give up on the situation, beginning to walk away shrunk in on herself. but she paused after walking a few steps past kiyo and looked at him again before setting her jaw.

 

‘ don’t - ‘ ryoma starts to say, but by the time he does, miu’s hands have already found kiyo’s back, shoving him forwards.

 

‘ that’s what you get for being a fuckin’ creep! ‘ she called out at the splash as kiyo hit the water, her fists curled with a sort of . . . was it really triumph? defiance? who knew what was going through her head, really. kiyo’s notebook was teetering on the edge of the pool, having flown out of his hands as miu had pushed him in. ryoma sighed and hopped off his chair, snagging it before it fell in. shinguji was a bit strange, but he didn’t deserve to have his things ruined.

 

walking to the edge of the water was when he realized something was wrong.

 

kiyo wasn’t moving.

 

not in the sense that he’d gone limp, or hit his head, mind you - quite the opposite. his arms looked like they were locked to his sides, tension clear in his body as a bow pulled one step past taut, his neck straining to keep his face parallel to the water, looking up at the ceiling with wide eyes, pupils turned pinprick-sized in fear. from where he was standing, ryoma could hear his breathing under his mask, wheezing and too-fast and shallow, before it becomes garbled - his hyperventilation doesn’t mix well with his sinking. water splutters around his face for a moment, and it’s clear, even under his mask, some must have gone up his nose or mouth, because he begins to sink in earnest, breath in his lungs no longer enough to keep him afloat as he rapidly loses air.

 

ryoma realizes he’s not the only one in the area frozen, watching this. the shouting and splashing at the other end of the pool begins to quiet as they realize something’s wrong, as kiyo begins to sink. _come on, you idiot,_ he thinks, _just swim! don’t freeze up like that!_

 

as if he wasn’t freezing himself, watching with no clear idea of what to do.

 

he didn’t totally understand, though. kiyo looked like he was paralyzed, eyes open even though the chlorine had to burn, and his lungs must’ve begun to take on water. his arms stayed pinned to his sides, his legs locked.

 

there were a lot less bubbles drifting upwards from him.

 

suddenly, there was a second _splash_ , and ryoma looked over to see rantaro diving in, slicing cleanly through the water to get to kiyo. he wrapped an arm around his ribs, and shoved off the bottom of the pool to get enough momentum to bring them both back up to the surface - a bit of an inelegant rescue, but the important thing was that kiyo’s head was above water again.

 

rantaro tugged off kiyo’s mask, and clung onto both him and the pool deck for one, two, seconds that felt far too long, before the anthropologist started coughing up water, spitting it inelegantly back into the pool as he gasped for breath. _finally,_ he started to react, legs thrashing out and clawing at rantaro’s arm even as the other boy tried to speak to him.

 

it’s gonta who ends up scooping him out of the pool, reaching under his shoulders and lifting him out as though he were no bigger than an infant and setting him down on the edge of one of the chairs, shuichi - who had gotten the entomologist - hovering anxiously nearby.

 

ryoma went back to his seat, two away from kiyo, watching the situation tersely. he supposes this is bystander effect - human nature. you don’t look away from a car accident. it’s not like there was a whole lot he could do to help, though. if he got in the water, he might just end up making the problem worse. ( he remembered that feeling, remembered water filling his mouth and nose as his body, despite his own intentions, tried desperately to cling to life, remembered the searing feeling in his chest as his vision turned red and then black - )

 

a retching sound drew him out of his thoughts, and he was . . . grateful for it, in a guilty sort of way, as he looked over to see kiyo vomit up pool water and the meager remnants of today’s breakfast, rantaro’s face tightening in sympathy a little as he rubbed his back, before shooting daggers at miu, who looked like she wanted to dig a hole to hide in.

 

‘ w-what! he was staring at everyone! ‘ she protested, shrinking back again.

 

‘ not an excuse to nearly drown him, miu, ‘ ryoma responds, shaking his head. ‘ that’s just uncool. ‘

 

he doesn’t bother to listen to her retort, turning his head back to look at kiyo, who has a hand clamped over his mouth, shivering there in his wet clothes. he can’t tell if the hand over his mouth is because he’s about to vomit again, or because his mask is gone. not sure what leads him, he takes the seat next to kiyo, resting a small hand on his shoulder and feeling him flinch.

 

‘ sorry ‘bout that. miu’s still got a ways to go. ‘ he suddenly remembers he grabbed kiyo’s notebook, and offers it to him. ‘ here. you dropped this. ‘

 

the anthropologist’s eyes widening as much as they do, and the way he clutches it to his chest would be humorous if it wasn’t also just a little . . . sad.

 

ryoma remembers how he was back at the academy - not _confident,_ per se, but there was definitely an assurance, there. he acted as if he knew who he was and what he was doing. they’d spent time together a couple of times - mostly going to the casino. kiyo would talk about the history of gambling or the different cultural theories and traditions surrounding luck as ryoma blew out the slot machines. sometimes they’d play cards. wearing a mask gives you a pretty damn good poker face, he had to admit.

 

there had been one time they’d both talked about the people they’d left behind. it sounded like kiyo had had a woman he’d loved, too, who had died before they had come here. kiyo had admitted to him that he had killed before this game had ever begun, too. he hadn’t expected to find a kindred spirit in a creepy folklorist, but he was decent company if you could tolerate it.

 

but there wasn’t any of that now, and ryoma couldn’t help but wonder what had happened.

 

before he could ponder it much longer, though, rantaro had returned, carrying what looked like eight towels with him and beginning to wrap them around him, carefully squeezing water out of his hair and toweling him off.

 

‘ pretty decent rescue, rantaro, ‘ ryoma states, flicking the end of his candy cigarette as though there was an actual butt there. ( he used to really smoke, and even though he’s since cut the habit, some of the muscle memory lingers. )

 

the other boy smiles, almost placidly. ‘ oh, it’s nothing. i’ve done it before. ‘ he hesitates, pausing in his work with a little frown. ‘ though . . . i don’t quite remember where, if i’m honest with you. ‘ he returns to drying kiyo off, before just beginning to pile the still-dry towels around the anthropologist. ‘ maybe with my sisters? or . . . one of the previous games. ‘

 

‘ previous games? ‘

 

rantaro’s smile is a little tight at the edges. ‘ mmhm. this is the fourth killing game i’ve been a part of. ‘

 

ryoma opens his mouth to ask what the _fuck_ that’s supposed to mean, but rantaro’s already standing with a little wave and that same peaceful smile. ‘ keep an eye on kiyo, will you? since it seems like you’re not planning on going in. ‘ and with that, he’s walking off.

 

funny. they’ve been out of the game for a few weeks now, but rantaro’s still baffling.

 

‘ i’ll see if i can get you a new mask. ‘ it’s shuichi - who had been the one to get gonta, still sort of hovering anxiously. kiyo gave no inclination that he had heard him, and, looking troubled, shuichi hesitated for a bit, as though waiting for a reply - that never came. ‘ i . . . hey. kiyo . . . if it’s still okay, i still want to - i haven’t stopped wanting to talk to you, you know. ‘

 

well, that was . . . strange. why would shuichi be refusing to talk to him?

 

either way, kiyo seemingly doesn’t acknowledge it. ryoma can recognize the hint of thousand-yard stare he seems to be getting. ‘ i think he’s still outta it, a bit, ‘ he decides to say to shuichi, tugging down his hat a little. shuichi looks at _him_ sadly now. ( right. he _had_ been one of the survivors. even if it turned out they were all fine, there had to be some weird sort of survivor’s guilt there. )

 

one way or another, though, he heads out, and ryoma settles back in his seat, tugging his hat down over his eyes. might as well get some rest if he’s just gonna be sitting here for however long it takes his classmates to go through their individual physical therapy.

 

he couldn’t help but wonder, though.

 

after an indeterminable amount of time, he sits back up and tugs his hat off his eyes again. kiyo seems to have calmed down some - he’s wearing a mask again and writing something in the margins of his notebook, brow furrowed in concentration.

 

ryoma’s not sure what makes him ask. but he does vow to himself that if kiyo doesn’t answer, he’ll stay out of it. it’s not cool to prod into other peoples’ business. ‘ hey, kiyo. why did miu do that, anyway? ‘ he doesn’t _just_ mean miu. many of them give kiyo a wide berth.

 

kiyo hesitates, pen drifting above the paper, before shutting the notebook, still looking down at the blank cover. ‘ i . . . suppose you’re going to find out eventually, ‘ he murmurs, and ryoma can’t tell if he’s talking to himself or to him. ‘ but . . . i have to admit. i was beginning to consider us friends, before your death. i . . . i will regret losing that. ‘

 

ryoma isn’t quite sure how to respond. to _any_ of that, frankly. ‘ i won’t judge you. reckon i got no place to. ‘

 

‘ that . . . might be less true than you think, ‘ kiyo says, hands tightening into fists.

 

‘ you don’t have to say. ‘

 

‘ no, i’d . . . you’re going to see my trial. i’d rather be able to explain this in . . . the right frame of mind. ‘

 

ryoma nods and sits back, and kiyo hugs his own shoulders. ‘ you remember i told you we had something in common, right? both of us . . . lost the one we loved, before we were taken to the academy. ‘

 

ryoma nods. ‘ you’ve mentioned your sister, too. said she was pretty sick, from the sound of it. ‘

 

a shadow passes over kiyo’s face, but he just hunches his shoulders a little. ‘ that . . . wasn’t a lie, but i admit speaking of her like that might have been obfuscating the truth a little. sister died three years ago. ‘

 

‘ i guessed, ‘ ryoma states bluntly. ‘ you said a few things that implied that. i didn’t know for sure, though. ‘

 

kiyo nods, still terse. ‘ . . . she was always very sick. when i was born, it was prematurely, but it made little difference, because my mother was bringing my sister to the hospital for a routine visit, anyway. by the time i was five and she was twelve, she had started spending entire weeks at a time there. when i was seven, she began to live there full-time. there was . . . ‘ he huffs out a sigh.

 

‘ because of her condition, there were several aspects of what one would consider a normal life that she missed. ‘ he looked almost . . . guilty. ‘ a normal life that i got to have. this . . . never seemed fair to her. i looked up to her so. it felt . . . unfair to me as well. so we made the decision that we could split my life. that she could live through me, to do the things she could not. ‘ it’s almost a touching story. almost. but there’s . . . something sinister looming there that ryoma can’t quite place a finger on.

 

‘ and i was fine with that. she was . . . more of a guiding figure in my life than our parents ever were. they were decent enough people, just often busy or absent because of work. as such, even though she was in the hospital, when i needed reassurance or comfort or advice or help or anything of the sort, it was sister that i went to. ‘

 

‘ she sounds like she was pretty important to you, ‘ ryoma says. he’s not quite sure where kiyo is going with this, but . . . he remembers shuichi listening to him. it’d helped _him_ to just be able to talk and have someone listen. maybe the least he can do is pass on the favor.

 

‘ she was, ‘ kiyo says, and there’s something . . . off, in his voice. ‘ she molded me into the person i am today. she was the one who initially had an interest in anthropology, and told me to pursue my own study of it. she made my uniform for me. i grew out my hair in tribute to her. initially, i started wearing a mask every day because she often had to, and she said it might . . . make things even, i suppose. i didn’t mind. i was . . . ‘ there’s a huff of air through his nose. ‘ perhaps this might be hard to believe, ‘ he says, in a deadpan voice, ‘ but people typically find me unapproachable, for some reason. ‘ he shakes his head. ‘ so it was . . . always just the two of us. ‘

 

 _what does this have to do with your trial? why would it cause disgust at all?_ ryoma refrains from asking, because he’s starting to have a slow suspicion creeping up in the back of his head. he tells himself not to jump to conclusions, though, and just . . . listen.

 

‘ when she was . . . i think it was around sixteen, the doctors told her that sooner or later, the disease was going to kill her. she was . . . i don’t even think i know the words for all she felt, then. but there was so much she knew she would never experience. ‘

 

he’s holding himself again, eyes distant.

 

‘ and . . . i suppose, for a teenager her age, the idea that she would never be able to explore any romantic persuits, or her sexuality, would be . . . understandably frustrating. ‘ he looks pained, as though he doesn’t quite know where to find the words for it, and ryoma can see blood slowly well up under one of his nails as he clings to his shoulders, digging in the sharp edges of his nails. he gives a noncommittal little grunt in response, to sort of say _go on,_ or _and?_

 

kiyo’s voice sounds far too casual, now. ‘ so she . . . learned to make do. ‘

 

ah. bile rose slightly in ryoma’s throat. so it _had_ been what he’d suspected. but . . . fuck. fucking christ.

 

kiyo was still talking, though. ‘ i . . . admit i didn’t fully understand what it was she wanted of me at first. but i learned. i loved her, right? this was just . . . a change in form, as - that’s how she stated it. it became . . . just the way things were. i was her brother, and her lover. ‘ ryoma can’t tell through the mask, but it seems like he’s smiling, harsh and bittersweet. ‘ . . . never her friend, though. for . . . some reason, i never managed to be good enough for that. ‘

 

he exhales, running a hand through his choppy hair. ‘ and so . . . that was the way things were, for five years. hiding that from everyone. because i loved her, and if i loved her, that meant i was supposed to love her unconditionally. right? so even if i didn’t entirely understand . . . for her, i learned to. ‘

 

he shrugs. ‘ and then - it finally happened. she succumbed to the disease. and i was . . . distraught. i nearly lost my mind, and i’m sure some would argue that i _did._ ‘ he sighed. ‘ our parents weren’t . . . around, in one way or another. it had never mattered much to me before she died, because i had always leaned on her more for everything, anyway. but i felt their absence . . . keenly, when she was gone. ‘

 

ryoma nods, slowly. it seems like he’s tugged out the metaphorical stopper, here, and words are just tumbling out of kiyo. past his control, now. but a sick part of him is . . . curious. to hear how this story ends. how kiyo became the person he met in the game, to the person he is now.

 

kiyo’s eyes are distant. whatever expression he has is hidden. ‘ i . . . before she died, i had never really cared about not being able to have f- to make friends well, or that i wasn’t close to anyone else. anthropologists are observers, not participants. ‘ he shrugs, a slow rolling thing. ‘ but it meant i was . . . very alone, when she died. ‘

 

absentmindedly, he clutches his wrist close to his chest. ‘ if i’m going to be blunt about it . . . initially my first line of action was just to try and follow her. i . . . attempted, i - don’t even remember how many times, really. ‘ he frowns down at his knees. ( ryoma thinks it’s a frown, at least, from the troubled light in his eyes and the creases of his brow. ) ‘ even if _i_ am simply an observer, it seems my body at its core was . . . fundamentally human. which means . . . despite my best efforts, it retained the very human resilience to cling to life. ‘ he looks like he’s reaching for something on his chest, before realizing it isn’t there and examining his nails instead. ‘ beautiful, isn’t it? ‘

 

his voice doesn’t sound like he means it.

 

ryoma shrugs, a slow apathetic thing. ‘ i can get not having anything to live for. but i don’t think there’s anything beautiful about it one way or another. ‘

 

kiyo doesn’t respond, just looking down and off as though the poolside concrete had all the answers he was looking for. ‘ it failed. so . . . instead, i turned back to anthropology. i became one of the most notable researchers into thanatology and rituals surrounding communication or resurrection of the dead. i tried so many times to bring her back, before coming to the conclusion that resurrection was impossible. ‘ he tugs at the strings of his mask. ‘ seances, though - communication, was an entirely viable option. there were a few times where i was able to see her or to speak with her again. so i . . . i kept chasing that. ‘

 

he hums, a low note of a thing. ‘ during one of these seances, her spirit entered me, and we . . . resumed our old deal. a split life, a shared one. she had died without a choice in the matter, and i . . . had tried to die but hadn’t been able to. so . . . i shared my body with her as well. ‘ he’s embracing himself again. ‘ which may make me sound delusional, but i promise you i am not. ‘

 

ryoma wasn’t going to _say_ it. but he was staring at kiyo, now, and even _without_ being someone who studied humans, it was clear to see what he was thinking.

 

kiyo huffed out a long sigh. ‘ i . . . at my trial. i didn’t give them as much of the story as i’m telling you now. i . . . broke down, a little. my sister took control of my body, to remind me to not falter. to not lose composure. to not waver. to not become flustered. and we . . . traded control, for the remainder of the trial. it . . . i ended up stating the nature of our relationship, before my execution. ‘

 

ryoma swallowed. that was . . . certainly a lot to take in. ‘ so, ‘ he says, just to cover it all, ‘ you killed someone, and then during your trial, told everyone that you were in an incestuous relationship with your dead sister, who sometimes possesses you. ‘

 

kiyo snorted, a soft exhale of air out through his nose, muffled some by the surgical mask. ‘ now, when you phrase it like _that . . ._ ‘

 

‘ and why did you freeze like that, when you were pushed in? ‘

 

kiyo stiffened slightly, but exhales. ‘ i . . . suppose you’re entitled to that much of an explanation, too. for my execution . . . i was tied up using a technique typically used to torture captured prisoners. they dropped me, still bound, into a pot of water, and began to . . . ‘ he shifts in his seat, tone changing abruptly. ‘ did you know that it can take a human over two hours to die if you boil them alive, if the water you put them in isn’t hot enough to induce shock initially? ‘

 

‘ jesus fuck, ‘ ryoma says.

 

‘ precisely, ‘ kiyo says dryly. ‘ the worst part, i think, was when the steam finally blinded me. i’m still unsure whether or not my eye actually popped from the heat, or if it was simply burst blood vessels or tears, but whatever the circumstances, it wasn’t pleasant. ‘

 

ryoma takes out a candy cigarette, gnawing on the end contemplatively as he considered all of what kiyo had said for a long moment. he looks back to the anthropologist. ‘ hell. you’re a fucking mess, huh? ‘

 

‘ that’s not particularly the turn of phrase i would use, ‘ kiyo says primly, ‘ but i wouldn’t say you’re _wrong,_ either. ‘ his voice sounds level, but his tension is still clear in his body, and his nails are digging into his skin again.

 

ryoma huffs out a sigh, nudging the side of his leg. ‘ hey. cut that out. here. ‘ he extends the box of candy cigarettes out towards him. kiyo looks at it dubiously, before relenting, taking one and tugging down his mask an inch or so to tuck it into the side of his mouth.

 

and immediately wrinkling his nose in distaste.

 

‘ these taste like chalk, ‘ he says, pulling it out of his mouth.

 

‘ bad brand, ‘ ryoma says, shrugging.

 

‘ you can tell the difference? ‘

 

‘ hey. let me have the small things. ‘ he tugs out his own cigarette and jabs it in kiyo’s direction. ‘ make a joke about that, and i’ll end you. ‘

 

he thinks he can see kiyo smile, just a little. ‘ i had no intention to. ‘

 

they sit in companionable silence, watching their classmates in the pool - miu was currently cussing out her physical therapist. ryoma had to admit he was a little impressed. he’d barely mouths that filthy in prison.

 

‘ you were eaten by piranhas, ‘ kiyo says, abruptly.

 

‘ . . . what? ‘

 

kiyo pursed his lips, or what ryoma could see of them, thoughtfully. ‘ well . . . you listened to me, despite me saying . . . likely more than you ever intended to hear. i thought i might do you the courtesy of a warning. we’ll be watching your body discovery today during the broadcast, yes? ‘ he fiddles with the stick of candy. ‘ i thought i’d inform you before we did. kirumi . . . in order to obfuscate the details of your crime, she used the magic show himiko was preparing to release your body into a tank of piranhas. ‘

 

‘ huh. ‘ was all ryoma was capable of saying. his stomach felt uneasy, and he wasn’t quite sure if it was the typical nausea from emerging from the stimulation, or an aftereffect of the incest talk, or about this particular conversation. ‘ no offense, kiyo, but you’re less cheerful than a mass grave sometimes. ‘

 

‘ a fair analysis, ‘ kiyo says dryly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rewatching a playthrough, i remembered in the casino scene that kiyo and ryoma were hanging out together and their back and forth seemed to imply they were friends. i wanted to build on that a little, and also deal with kiyo starting to come to terms with how that relationship was Not healthy.


	8. Chapter 8

**_the observations of korekiyo shinguji, as taken directly from his notes_ **

 

having to begin an entirely new documentation on my classmates is . . . painful, to say the least. however, i suppose it is only apt - all of us have changed in some amount, however small, since we came out of the simulation. from this point on in my notes, they will be written in a single language, because i know kokichi occasionally reads this, and does not read most of the languages i do. ( kokichi, if you’re reading _this_ , i am not upset at you for your curiousity, and you _have_ been very good at returning it to where you found it. however, i have a system in place to check whether or not anyone has been tampering with my things. i will not tell you what it is. hopefully, this will be enough to satiate your curiousity. from now on, if things are written in other languages, please understand that not everything is for your eyes and be content with this much. )

 

notable events/conversations of today:

 

  * kirumi, albeit a little stiffly, approached ryoma to apologize to him. the conversation went something as transcribed:  
( k: _ryoma. i would . . . like to make my apology to you, for taking advantage of your situation whilst we were still in the game. i didn’t feel the proper remorse for it at the time, but i now regret my actions.  
_r: _don’t worry about it.  
_k: _still, i would -  
_r: _i said don’t worry about it, didn’t i? i let you. you thought you had an entire country you had to save. if you’re really beatin’ yourself up about that still, i guess you’ve got a ways to go.  
_k: . . .  
k: _thank you, ryoma. if there is anything i can do to be of service to you in here, please do not hesitate to ask.  
_r: _heh. i’ll keep it in mind._ )
    * i will have to update kirumi and ryoma’s relationship under interpersonal connections to accommodate for this apology. observations to see whether or not this changes more than their short-term dynamic should be taken closely.
    * i believe kirumi’s regret is sincere. however, it is too early for me to come to a conclusion as to whether she regrets her actions out of genuine moral conscience, or because of the punishment she faced then and the judgement she faces now for it.
    * ryoma is . . . hm. tired? steady? nothing really seems to shake him, but it’s more from an overwhelming apathy than anything else. _haggard_ may be the right word. in that he’s seen enough that he doesn’t quite care what happens from this point on.
    * i believe ryoma has at least some will to live returned. i am happy for him.



 

 

  * angie was explaining some of her language to a bemused rantaro. i’ve jotted down what i can on the previous page; i will have to find some way of checking whether or not i can even use this alphabet to convey her language.
    * from the assortment of words for them, apparently blood sacrifice and ritual sex(?) both play a large part in angie’s religion. every day, the way her mythology works confuses me more and more.
    * angie is, essentially, a prophetess. she had taken on a similar role in our group, yes, but it is interesting to note that that is her official title at home.
    * atua is apparently getting restless due to the lack of blood sacrifices allowed here. i asked angie whether or not other parts of our bodies would do as a temporary stopgap. she said they might, so i gave her my hair. i’m not quite sure why, but it’s not as though i was going to do anything with it.
      * i believe she burnt it. how, i am not quite sure.
    * rantaro apparently has 200-something ‘points’. i am yet unsure whether this is a large or small number, relatively speaking, in the terms of her religion. further investigation to continue.



 

 

  * kaito and kokichi got into a fight. i was not able to listen in to all of their argument, and at one point kaito seemed to realize the fact that i was there, which cut it off abruptly. here is as much of it as i heard, transcribed:  
( ka: _\-- was blackmail, and you can’t deny that, kokichi.  
_ko: _that’s not what blackmail means, you know. blackmail is if i was threatening to leak information about you or maki! saying that she would have been the blackened was just a fact.  
_ka: _you still got me to do the dirty work for you. that’s just your way, isn’t it? find some patsy to blame it all on.  
_ko: _alright! i’m sorry! neeheehee, though that might be a lie. is kaito jealous of me for being the most interesting death?  
_ka: _shut up, kokichi.  
_ko: _ooh, ooh, what kinda noise did it make, anyway? was it a squish, or a crunch, or some mix of both, or -  
_ka: _i said shut_ up, _kokichi.  
_[ brief pause/silence ]  
ka: _why couldn’t you have gotten someone else to do it? or put me under the press? i was dying anyway.  
_ko: _you know why.  
_ka: _your plan went to shit, anyway. you should’ve had more faith in shuichi.  
_ko: _maybe! or maybe that’s a lie. i had too much faith in him.  
_ka: _the hell’s that supposed to mean?  
_ko: _did i say something? i think you might be hearing things, kaito!  
_ka: _don’t be a dick, you little - hold on a second. is that shinguji?  
_ko: _no, it’s just a particularly morbid lamp.  
_ka: _do you really have to keep eavesdropping on people, you creepy fag? i’m outta here._ )
    * thus, the conversation ended.
    * it must be noted, i don’t actually believe kaito is a bad person. i think he has internalized a deeply toxic masculinity, and also has a debilitating fear of the supernatural. being effeminate and someone who closely works with ghosts or subjects relating to death, i unnerved him on several levels.
      * additionally, he sees me as an incestuous serial killer. it’s understandable to be shaken some by that.
    * i’m as of yet unsure how kokichi died. here is what i have been able to puzzle out:
      * they were working together.
      * maki - poisoned? mortally wounded? kokichi in some way or another so that he was already dying, which, if left to its own devices, would make maki the blackened.
      * kaito’s chronic illness had caught up to him by this point.
      * i . . . assume press means hydraulic press or something similar? if that _is_ true, then i . . . do not envy kokichi his death. it would have taken less than a minutes, to be fair, but even a few seconds of being slowly flattened is . . .
      * they had some sort of plan. potentially with the trial, given that shuichi was the one to allegedly ruin it.
    * i’ll have to do what i can to piece together the other events. kaito doesn’t like or trust me, and i know better than to ask for a straightforwards explanation from kokichi. maybe i can ask shuichi. they aren’t _meant_ to tell us what happened after our deaths, but shuichi has a guilty demeanor around most of the killers. i think he, on some level, believes himself responsible for our fates. i’m . . . not above using this to try and piece together what happened.



 

 

  * himiko tried to kill me.
    * there isn’t much to be said about this event in particular, if i am honest. i can’t say that i didn’t have it coming, and i didn’t resist.
    * her hands were too small around, i believe was what influenced her decision - she wrapped a pillowcase in a full loop around my throat and stood on my chest, pulling it taut. of course, with the cameras placed everywhere, attendees eventually got through the chair she had placed under the handle and restrained her.
    * i am . . . curious, on some level. if she hadn’t been stopped, would she have gone all the way? would anyone feel anything beyond the same level of disgust or pity and relief you feel for a dog who attacks/bites people being put down? what would her punishment even be? these are far from normal circumstances, after all.
      * as it is, she’s being restrained for two days, and she was sedated for the rest of the night. it would potentially have been for longer, had i not insisted there was no lasting harm.
    * isn’t it amazing on some level, how the body wants to live even if the mind does not?



 

 

  * kokichi and miu were bickering for some time. i’m not going to record _all_ their insults, because most of them were disgustingly sexual, and after a point, inane, but here are some that were almost impressive:
      * m: _your mom fuckin’ miscarried, and was so sad about it afterwards that when she went into the hospital bathroom, she decided to take home the pile of shit and raise it instead_
      * k: _you’re less desirable than a college student’s favorite sock, you greasy cum dumpster_
      * m: _you put the ‘tard in bastard, you know that?_
      * k: _listen, just because you flunked out of whore school doesn’t mean you’re good enough to yell at_ me
    * oddly enough, i believe this is how they show friendship to each other. i think something happened between them as well, after my death, but this may be their way of making up with each other.
    * they’re both very similar people, on some level. kokichi lies and tries to appear malicious. miu appears vulgar and hypersexual. i think it’s . . . shielding, of a sort. i believe they’re both lonely, but want it to appear as though they’re entirely in control of people disliking them.



 

 

  * i sat with rantaro today as he contacted some of the people from one of his previous killing games. i think he was just glad to have someone to cement him to the here and now.
    * from what i can make out, the three he were in contact with were some of the other last survivors, besides himself. they all know him as rantaro amami, ultimate adventurer, as well.
    * rantaro acts . . . different, among them and among us. though i can’t entirely blame us. before he died, he knew us for all of a week, perhaps two, and now he has to spend . . . however long danganronpa decides is fitting, with us, rather than the groups he spent entire games with.
    * he avoided the question i asked of him later, if he’d rather be living with them.
      * ( r: _well, that isn’t the way things are, is it? no use thinking about it now._ )
    * he has a very nice smile. this is not a particularly scientific notation, but it is something that occurred to me while i was making my notes. for the most part, i believe it is meant to reassure others or shut them down. but sometimes he will smile genuinely. it’s an interesting thing.
    * he offered to neaten up my hair when we’re in a situation where he has access to something other than safety scissors. i accepted - as it stands, it’s very choppy, given the circumstances.



 

 

  * something strange has occurred to me. usually, while making my observations about people, i would consider whether or not they would be a good friend for sister. ( as such, i tended not to spend much time with men. since they would never be her friends, there was no need in particular. perhaps that is part of the reason i am seen as more effeminate? ) however, of late . . . there are a few people i have started to consider _my_ friends. this is new. i have not told sister about it, nor do i intend to. i am not sure why, but i feel as though she’d be . . . displeased. she would want to know why she was not enough company for me.
    * kokichi. he is . . . rude and childish and abrasive, sometimes. but he is much smarter than he wants people to know, and he _knows_ people, can read them well. it’s a talent i like to think i have, as well, but he appears . . . supernaturally good at it, sometimes.
      * he states that it’s because liars know their own kind. an interesting theory. if i had access to resources, i think it’s something i would be interested in pursuing.
      * several of his interests are also childish. he tends to prefer sugary food and cartoons, that sort of thing.
      * he seems to be a bit of a kleptomaniac. but given that we’re living with team danganronpa, this is . . . not something i’ve particularly tried to discourage. he has used his skills to get me a few things, as well - like this notebook or pencil. i once asked if he could get me a candle, before realizing it was useless, since we aren’t allowed matches or lighters or anything of the sort.
        * additionally, the candle he managed to get me was bright pink and smells like watermelon. the word ‘bubbleicious’ is printed on the side in yellow and blue pop art-esque letters. i believe trying to perform a seance with it might edge on being sacrilegious. nonetheless, i appreciate the gesture on his part.
      * he seems to care on some level about everyone here. however he is . . . i won’t say he’s fully honest with me, i don’t think he’s capable of that, but he’s more forthright. blunt. as he’s stated before, we are the two . . . undesirables of the group. its not as though i can or will gossip to anyone else.
    * shuichi. he’s grown quite a bit since i last saw him in the game, and exponentially so from when we first met. he’s much bolder, now, though there is . . . something pained, in his eyes, talking to many of us.
      * he still has that odd habit of giving anyone he wishes to spend time with a present. not that i’ll object, of course - anything to pass the time is welcome here, and he has more access than i do, but it _is_ strange.
      * he has reassured me on multiple occasions that he still wishes to be friends with me. a curious sentiment, and i’m not entirely sure why he thinks i _need_ said reassurance. nonetheless i . . . am glad of it, on some level.
      * oddly enough, i think he’s more comfortable talking to those like me or rantaro, who he didn’t form anything more than a surface-deep friendship with, than those like maki, who survived with him, or kaito, who was his best friend in the simulation, or kokichi. i’m not sure there’s any explaining kokichi.
      * i . . . enjoy his company. i want to note it here that i hold no grudge against him for deciding my trial. i condemned myself, not him.
      * he is one of the first few people to seem genuinely interested in what i have to say. i wonder if he knows how much that means. perhaps i am simply overreacting. he does interact in a very genuine way with most of us.
    * rantaro. we are both travelers, we both dedicated ourselves and our talents to our sister/s, we’re both very multilingual, and we are both . . . at a bit of a loss as to how to define ourselves, at the moment.
      * our interactions have been fleeting, and less frequent than i’d prefer, but i am glad i get the chance to talk with him. there was never really an opportunity to, within the game, given how quickly he died.
      * he seems to constantly need to be _doing_ something. as such, the few times we have hung out, he’s left my hair in a crown of braids or my nails painted or something like that. a seemingly pointless endeavor to me, but if it helps him keep his hands busy, i will subject myself to it.
      * it’s interesting to begin to see the person behind the mystery, and to find some of the reason behind his secrecy.
    * ryoma. in all honesty, i think his friendship may only last as long as it takes to finish our watch-through of the game up to the end of my trial, but that does not mean i can’t enjoy his company while i have it. it’s easy with him to forget he’s a teenager, the same as any of us. and it’s in his company that i have a rare compatriot - someone who lost their lover, someone who has killed many people ( more than i allegedly have ), someone who has experienced suicidal ideation at some point in his life. his apathy can occasionally be . . . a relief. kokichi and rantaro and shuichi are all filled with a nervous energy that is sometimes overwhelming.



 

 

  * these are the major developments for today. tomorrow, we have another session of group therapy - as i noted a few pages back, where we were all supposed to make _i feel_ statements.
    * side note: i _feel_ as though it’s an outdated and cliche method of therapy that isn’t effective on anyone past second grade, and is questionable even then.




	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's game is called: the author is having a manic episode and now so are all of you

he’s not a fool, when it comes down to it.

 

shuichi only feels pity for him because that’s the kind of person he is, and kokichi just doesn’t want to be alone in being hated, and rantaro just gets along with everyone, and ryoma hasn’t seen that he’s a bad person yet. he doesn’t have friends. not really. he shouldn’t.

 

why did he ever think he could?

 

he didn’t deserve them. he didn’t deserve them. he didn’t deserve them. why did he spend so much time, after all, devoted to finding his sister all the friends she asked for, and never staying in one place long enough for anyone to remember what little of his face they saw? she deserved it. deserved the chance to make friends, to have people that cared about her more than korekiyo, twisted and bitter and not-quite-right korekiyo, loved by necessity korekiyo. yes, yes, she loved him. but that was only because there was no one else who would love her back.

 

he thinks of the tale of loki and sigyn, how loki had been restrained in a cave with poison constantly flowing over his face. poison, disease, pestilence - the same in the end. a slower death, a death-by-invasion, a shutting down of the sytems from the inside. but sigyn, his faithful wife, sat by his side and caught all the poison, until she had to empty the bowl - and in that time, the poison would touch him and he would scream hard enough to shake the earth.

 

picture that. picture, instead of a rock and chains, a hospital bed and so, so many tubes. though, is the disease the chains, or is it the poison, slowly killing her? it was loki’s son’s entrails, carved from him, that bound him to the rock, and it was an autoimmune disease that took her. perhaps, then, it is best linked to the chains - flesh and blood used to destroy its own.

 

and his sister has no faithful wife with a wooden bowl, just a younger brother who spends every minute sitting by her bed, holding her hand, crawling up onto the bed with her ( and into the bed with her, when she asked it of him ), skipping school in favor of staying at the hospital with some old book or another.

 

but the bowl had to be emptied.

 

he had to go home. had to go to school often enough that he didn’t fail. had to leave her.

 

as a child, he had rushed these periods of time as much as possible, believing himself sigyn, then - it was his absence, causing her slow death. if he was able to spend every second by her, like she asked of him, then she wouldn’t die. she couldn’t die. then maybe her pain would ease.

 

he wonders if sigyn got lonely.

 

if she became a pariah among her peers because of the choices she’d made. to put her lover first, even if he was a person they saw as abominable. he knows that they think of both him and sister with disgust. and he is willing to take that for himself; he knows what he has done, knows his crimes, and agrees the execution is a just one. but she . . . he hates that they think of her as a monster. hates the moments where her voice in his head goes silent, and he finds himself doubting her. hates that he’s questioning her.

 

he wonders if he is loki, now. they tell him that he signed his life to danganronpa of his own free will. a binding contract, in the most literal sense - wrapping around him like chains, like hands that went too far, like the viscera of an undeserving victim. but there is no one to sit near his prison.

 

why does he do this? why does he connect everything to stories? why can’t he live in the real world?

 

( the real world wants nothing to do with him, and he can’t blame it. )

 

group interaction has been forced upon them a few times now by the hospital staff, who seemed to be growing tired of them all avoiding each other and curling up in their own rooms like animals, refusing to eat, waiting to die. they go to group therapy and to the pool and the movie nights and music therapy as if they’ll be able to make eye contact. as if they don’t have to look at rantaro and remember what the inside of his head looked like, spilling out on the rich-red carpet of the library. as if they don’t have to remember kirumi’s desperate screaming, chest-deep and feral and raw, as she ran for her life and for, she believed, her people. as if they don’t have to look at kiyo and remember that there’s something deeply _wrong_ with him.

 

changelings. a common theme in northern european folklore. the idea that a human infant had been taken, and replaced with something _wrong._ taken for food or as part of a tithe to hell, taken because the changeling infants needed human milk to grow or simply because they could. the important thing was: there was something that looked human but was not. something in the role of a human. a skin filled with malicious intent.

 

( of course, as an anthropologist, he knows it was a story constructed mostly to explain mentally or physically disabled children. the idea that there was a _real_ child somewhere out there, a _human_ child, so they could believe the flawed-thing they had given birth to wasn’t _really_ theirs. )

 

they would be drowned or burned or put in the oven to clean the fairy from them. maybe his execution should have done that. maybe they boiled him alive to clear out whatever the parasite was that chewed him up and left him hollow inside. and maybe they did kill the parasite, maybe they did, but the problem with that was that it was all he was - there was never a parasite to begin with. just him. korekiyo. korekiyo.

 

_wrong._

 

( _bathe me in a solution of foxglove,_ he calls out, half-incoherent and unable to stop laughing, to the nurse who comes to check in on him, to make sure he’s eaten something today. )

 

‘ i wish you were dead, ‘ himiko tells him, looking up at him defiantly, when one of the counselors drags her into his room and tells her to apologize for earlier in the week, when she wrapped her small hands around as much of his neck as she could, and he let her. ‘ it would be better if you were. ‘ and she’s swiftly ushered out of his room for that; he can hear her being admonished by them in the hall, and it’s funny, it’s funny, it _has_ to be funny, because all he can do is laugh, hysterical giggles falling out through his fingers as he clutches his face, digs his nails into his forehead. he can’t breathe. he can’t breathe. he just laughs. _kehehe-_

 

laughs. he remembers studying cross-cultural laughter at one point. the differences in social norms in how one learns to laugh; what is publically acceptable. noted differences between samoan and pakeha new zealanders in the tone described almost as falsetto in the former’s laughter.

 

what does his laughter say about him? it isn’t one that comes from anywhere. not acceptable anywhere. is it a return to changelings? a sign that he is not-quite-human, not-quite-right?

 

no.

 

no, he can’t keep thinking about this in terms of stories. he is not a piece of folklore. ( and yet he _is,_ and he would argue about the definition of folklore and whether the story of danganronpa, given the huge cultural impact it had had, constituted or could be considered such at some point in the distant future. if he was someone else. if he was something else. if he had the luxury of separation. )

 

she wishes he was dead, and it’s almost a shame they pulled her out of the room before he had the chance to say anything in response, throat still aching from the fairy-ring of bruises she had cast into it, because he would have said _you’re right, you’re right, you’re right._ objectively, there is no longer a function he serves.

 

cull the herd!

 

miu iruma, crude foul-mouthed brash miu iruma, iruma who he had deemed not good enough for sister, looks at him with a deep contempt in her eyes and curled fists, yells out that he’s a siscon freak or that he probably got off to the memories of killing tenko, killing angie, or even his own death, because he was fucked in the head.

 

kaito momota, ex-luminary of the stars, ‘believe in your friends’ kaito, walks to take a different route when he sees kiyo in the hall, on one of the rare occasions he leaves his room. sits at the furthest away table from him. kiyo understands. he is cruelty and the dead and unknown and effeminate; he is everything that kaito is not, and as he sits with a plate of hospital food growing cold in front of him, he wonders if he would be worth saving if he was a little more like momota.

 

kirumi, selfless devotion kirumi, found out somehow. he doesn’t know how. but she, like everyone, gives his room and his place at the table a wide berth.

 

( by nature, he is an observer. even though he staunchly tries not to, he overhears the things they say. hears shuichi admit, hushed, in therapy, that his execution was the first time he wanted someone to die. hears that he deserved what he got and more, from enough mouths that he forgets who does and doesn’t think that. hears that he was the only one of them that nobody mourned. even tsumugi they wanted to believe in until the bitter end. )

 

he wonders if angie still sacrifices blood to her god, or if the game has thrown off her faith as much as it has his - in his views, in himself, in _her._ can’t stop the laughter from crawling, hiccuping and disgusting and murky, out of the recesses of his throat, when he wonders for too long. thinks about what her answer might be if he offered her all of his. drain him dry, turn him to something holy. he isn’t a man of any faith; perhaps that can make his body a no-man’s-land.

 

he took her life, after all. it would only be fair.

 

group therapy again. the truth game, again, _i feel_ and stagnant air turning staler and staler under each of their watching eyes until his hands are clawing at his windpipe because there’s no way to breathe, not in this room - but they just restrain his hands to the arms of the chair until the game finishes.

 

sometimes. sometimes his thoughts are more organized. sometimes he’ll play cards with ryoma, or tell kokichi stories until the rasp of his voice winds silent from overuse, or is able to eat something from the dining hall. sometimes he feels _human,_ and he wonders if that is a mistake on his part.

 

he’s in his room again.

 

he’s always here.

 

it is his place, only his place - here he can’t bother the others. they are safe from him. he is safe from them. comfort taken in isolation.

 

he doesn’t know what fuels his actions, but he’s walking to the small bathroom in here and wrenching the handle, a violent, jerking method. pushes it to the left until the mirror begins to cloud with steam, and uses his toes to tug off his socks, leaving them to the side of the tub, and sitting down in it when there’s still only an inch of water.

 

it burns his skin, turns it heat-red.

 

it’s what he deserves.

 

it fills up and up and up, and soon his skin will start to blister and the steam will blind him before he finally dies - his nerve endings will die and his fat will break down underneath his skin, effectively cooking him, and, and -

 

and that doesn’t happen, because it’s a hospital room, and while the water is burning hot, it isn’t _deadly_ hot, isn’t the kind of hot where he submerges his head and it’s over quickly because his brain finally boils in his skull, just the kind of hot where his whole body screams at him to get out of the water, where his skin turns deep pink-red, the kind of hot where the air, when he shifts, feels so cold it burns whenever he takes some part of his body out for a moment.

 

oh, but how could he forget? there’s a fire underneath. there’s a fire underneath and though it’s only skin-redden hot now, it’ll keep heating. he’ll have a moment where he realizes that this is how he’s going to die, and it’s going to keep boiling, and he can’t even vomit at the pain or at the smell of his own body like cooking meat because his mask is on, the zipper burning an indentation over his lips, skin fusing to metal and to cloth and, and -

 

that’s funny. he doesn’t remember the melting pot running over.

 

but it does, now, the spigot still running even as the water level reaches the top of the tub, and he just stares at it blankly as water begins to spill over the sides. he can’t reach forwards to turn off the tap, he reasons, because his arms are tied behind his back. surely, they’ll forgive him for that. besides - even if he is punished, it can’t be worse than the one he’s receiving now.

 

someone is walking outside the door to his room, and their feet, flickering back and forth against the light of the hallway, emulate the fire around him, and he chokes back something that could either be a laugh or a sob.

 

he deserves this, after all, doesn’t he? he wonders, if he let _her_ take over, if _she_ would have the resilience to let their head dip beneath the surface of the water and hold it under until water filled their lungs. but she has been silent, lately.

 

oh.

 

he wasn’t sure how his face got wet. he was keeping that much of himself out of the water, still wearing the hospital gown. but he touches his cheeks and finds - blood, pink blood, pouring out of his eyes as the blood vessels in them pop - tears there, salty and clear at the end of his red hands.

 

what do you do, if you’re lost without an anchor? what do you do, if all you know about yourself is that you aren’t something good, aren’t something meant to exist?

 

in the case of korekiyo shinguji, he sits in a hospital bathroom filling up with steam, the floor slowly covering with water, and he _sobs._ something snaps inside of his chest, and he just - he doesn’t know if it’s screaming or crying or laughing, but it feels erratic and jumpy, like someone set fish hooks up against each of his ribs, and yanked at them with every heaving breath he took.

 

his eyes are blurring, and he can’t remember if that’s because he’s crying, frozen in place, or if it’s because the steam is beginning to affect his vision. he might lose his sight altogether soon.

 

how do some of his classmates do it? act like . . . _people,_ after all of this?

 

_between the idea / and the reality / between the motion / and the act / falls the shadow_

 

from the hollow men. he’s always liked that poem. he feels hollow now. not an idea or a reality, not an object in motion or acting of his own volition - a shadow, then, or something even less.

 

the water begins to spread under the door of the bathroom, and he sinks forwards in the tub a little bit, water plastering his mask to his face and nearly reaching up to his mouth. the heat paralyzes him, captures him here, here in this tub with his hands curled to fists so tight it feels as though his fingers would have to be broken to get them to release.

 

not with a bang, but a whimper, indeed.


	10. Chapter 10

miu iruma, gorgeous girl genius, is a good person and deserves better than this. well, maybe not a good person, but a better fuckin’ person than the scrubs who ran this shithole. she’d spilled syrup all over her legs this morning, lost at uno to the little shrimp-dicked gremlin ( the tennis playing one, not the grapehead ), and now she had stepped in a puddle of water, effectively turning the weird papery shoes? socks? they gave each of them into pulpy mush.

 

‘ when i said i missed getting wet, ‘ she grumbles to an attentive audience of no one, peeling off the shoes and tossing them to the side aimlessly for some danganronpa bootlicker to pick up, ‘ this is _not_ what i fucking meant. fuck me. ‘

 

why the hell was there water here, anyway?

 

she squinted at the slowly expanding puddle coming from under the door as though it can give her the answers.

 

wait. slowly expanding?

 

she looks up at the door. this was the siscon’s room, right? did he fuckin’ spill something? there was no light coming from under the door, so what the hell was up with that? she grimaced, shuddering. maybe he was jacking it in there or something. still, that wouldn’t explain the water.

 

‘ hey, kiyo! the fuck’s up? ‘ she calls out, almost punching the door as she hammers on it, getting no reply. maybe he just isn’t in there. she waits, tapping her toe impatiently for a few seconds before slamming the door open. ‘ hey, fuckface! you’re drippin’ wet, and not in the fun way! what’s - ‘

 

huh.

 

opening the door doesn’t actually clarify anything, she finds out, as she’s hit in the face with a wall of steam, waving her hand in front of her face to clear it, grimacing. it’s dark when she peers into the room, and it . . . _looks_ unoccupied. but there’s a solid inch of water that just seems to have flooded the entire room, and the bathroom door is closed, a strange sound coming from it. the water seems to be coming from there.

 

did she want to know? who knew, with that creepy motherfucker.

 

still, her curiousity so often wins out against her common sense, so in bare feet, she wades into the room, hissing curses - the water’s _warm,_ and only getting hotter as she walks towards the bathroom. ‘ if this turns out to be some kinky bullshit i’m gonna kill him and then myself, ‘ she mutters, hiking up her scrub pants and rolling them up to her knees so _those_ don’t get wet as well.

 

that strange noise kept going. she pauses outside the bathroom door, frowning as she tries to pin it down. maybe it’s mechanical? there’s a low sort of keening, and it hitches - could be some kinda malfunction. but what the fuck could be malfunctioning like that, especially in king creepy’s bathroom?

 

she opens the door and immediately regrets it, as another flood of water rushes out of the bathroom into the bedroom. ‘ oh, for _fuck’s_ sake, ‘ she says, kicking at the surface of the water as though that’ll do anything. still, it makes her feel a bit better. she flicks on the lights, irritation rising in her chest. ‘ hey, kiyo! what gives, huh? ‘

 

seeing what’s happening, somehow, clears nothing up.

 

through all the steam, kiyo appears to be curled in an upright fetal position at one end of the bathtub, the water running over the edge, faucet still running even as the water flows over the brim. at least she knows where the sound is coming from - kiyo is sobbing, an ugly keening hiccuping sort of thing, like he can’t quite remember how to breathe, and his skin is colored a sort of red from being in hot water for so long.

 

muttering curses under her breath, she walks over to the spigot and reaches out to turn it off, jerking away her hand quickly. ‘ _fuck,_ that’s hot. what the hell, kiyo? is this some masochistic kind of bullshit, huh? ‘ he doesn’t respond, even as she sticks her arm into the scalding hot water to turn on the drain, and a deep pang of fear suddenly hits her in the chest, whirling around to face him and tugging out his hands to check his arms, sighing in annoyance - but also relief. she’s not sure what she would’ve done had he actually come in here to die.

 

fuck, though, even with the drain on, how the hell are they supposed to deal with all the water on the floor? well, she guesses it’s danganronpa’s problem.

 

‘ hey, kiyo. how long have you been in here, huh? ‘ she asks, brow furrowing at the deep wrinkles in his fingertips and how feverish his skin had been when she’d grabbed his arm. no answer, and the steam was starting to get to her.

 

she considers just leaving him there, in his steamy bathroom, to whatever sent his sorry ass in there in the first place. but . . . she frowns, remembering. shit, his execution . . . this was how he died, wasn’t it? why the hell was he like this, then? had she not been too off the mark with what she thought his intentions might be?

 

sighing, she makes a snap decision.

 

‘ come on, tall, dark, and gimpy, ‘ she says to an unreactive kiyo, wrapping her arms under his shoulders and pulling him up to the edge of the tub. she thought it might be hard, but kiyo is . . . surprisingly thin. that, or she’s stronger than she thought she was. ‘ you up to walk, huh? ‘

 

kiyo tries, on wobbling legs, to stand, and then wavers for a moment. at least miu manages to catch him when his eyes roll back and his legs give out without ceremony. right. hot tub rules or some shit - you weren’t supposed to stay in for too long, or you could black out if you get up too quick or something like that.

 

she just makes sure he’s on his back on the two inches of water covering his floor before walking out of the wet room, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind her.

 

there’s a good few wheelchairs in each side hall and closet, just in case one of them has an episode or something like that. she grabs the closest one, hoisting it over her shoulder. she can’t believe she’s doing this. she can’t believe she’s doing this, and for _kiyo._ fucker probably doesn’t deserve it.

 

still, she’s opening up the wheelchair near the bathroom door, and groans, working to . . . she doesn’t really have the strength or co-ordination to put him in it comfortably, so she settles for just kind of draping him in it. where the hell to take him, though?

 

out of here, at least. the steam’s hell on her hair.

 

aimlessly, she walks through the halls, and realizes she’s headed to the room she shares with kirumi and kaede. they’d all been deemed ‘people who would be better off rooming with someone else’. miu would admit it over her dead fucking body, but the shrinks here had been right about that, at least.

 

well, what the fuck. why not. if _she_ has to deal with slenderman here, it’s only fair the rest of her roommates have to put up with him too. ( that, and she’s a little bit worried for him, if she’s honest. the hell was he doing in there? )

 

she knocks on the door, seeing the lights on. ‘ hey, kirumi! open up! ‘ she snorts. ‘ that’s what he said. anyway! i got a . . . surprise, i fuckin’ guess. ‘

 

kirumi, as anyone would be smart to do whilst talking to miu, looks dubious as she opens the door, an expression that only increases upon seeing kiyo, drenched and unconscious, piled onto a wheelchair. she sighs, opening the door enough that miu can push him in, which she does, just giving the chair one big shove so it flies halfway across the room, rolling to a stop against the wall. with that, she collapses onto her stomach on the bed, groaning.

 

‘ miu. are you going to explain . . .‘ kirumi waved her hand in the direction of kiyo. ‘ this. ‘

 

miu shrugs, rolling onto her back and blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. genius really never went appreciated here, huh? the things she put up with. ‘ wish i had a good answer for you. found the fucker in his room with all the lights off and the tub overflowing - seems like he must’ve been in there for awhile. it was leaking outside of his room, and there was like, a solid inch of water flooding the room. ‘

 

kirumi frowns at that, but the maid in her seems to be taking over a little. ‘ hm. i suppose he can stay. why is he unconscious? ‘

 

‘ he tried to stand up, ‘ miu said, shrugging expansively.

 

‘ he might be dehydrated, ‘ kirumi says slowly.

 

‘ water was overflowing the entire fucking room! ‘

 

‘ yes, but was he _drinking_ any of it? ‘

 

‘ i guess you’ve got a point, ‘ miu says grudgingly, as kirumi crouches by korekiyo to arrange his lanky limbs so he might be more comfortable. ‘ should i see if i can get one of the head cases around here to check him out? ‘

 

‘ i don’t particularly trust them, ‘ kirumi says, curtly, still checking on kiyo. ‘ let’s see what happens when he wakes up. ‘

 

it takes about ten minutes, fifteen minutes, for kiyo to stir, shaking his now-short hair out of his eyes blearily and taking in his surroundings with a profound sort of confusion on his face. ‘ where am - why am i - miu? kirumi? how did i . . . get here? ‘

 

‘ oh, finally you wake the fuck up. you owe me bigtime, ‘ miu says, hopping off her bed. ‘ you were, like - having some sort of mental breakdown in your bathtub, i guess. the fuck were you trying to do, anyway? ‘

 

kiyo is silent for a long moment, looking down at his hands. ‘ i believe i . . . may have had a slight lapse in judgement, ‘ he eventually murmurs, shoulders slowly sinking inwards like a kid’s sandcastle slowly collapsing.

 

‘ well, no shit, sherlock,‘ miu can’t help but say with a snort. ‘ but, like, what were you thinking? ‘

 

kiyo is quiet again, as kirumi walks back into the room ( when had she left? miu didn’t even remember seeing her do it ) and presses a cup of water into his hands. tentatively, he speaks. ‘ i . . . think i may have had something of a breakdown. ‘

 

‘ again, ‘ miu says, ‘ no fucking shit. but is that why you . . . i guess, tried to act out your execution or whatever? why the hell would you want to do that? ‘

 

‘ his execution? ‘ kirumi asks, folding her hands over each other.

 

‘ tied up, then boiled alive, then they melted the fuck outta his ghost, ‘ miu says, wrinkling her nose. ‘ it was some gnarly shit. ‘

 

‘ ah. i see. some kind of . . . retraumatization, perhaps, ‘ kirumi says thoughtfully, resting a hand on her chin. ‘ korekiyo, i may not approve of what i have been . . . told of your actions. but - that does not mean i lack compassion. i also murdered for those i believed i left outside the academy. ‘

 

‘ well yeah, ‘ miu can’t help but chime in, ‘ but you thought you had to like, save the entire country. he turned out to be a sisterfucker who murdered people for funsies because he’s some kinda psycho. ‘ kiyo, in his chair, winces, just a little, and a vicious part of miu thinks _good. hope he feels bad about that shit._

 

‘ don’t be crass, miu, ‘ kirumi says, a slight scolding tone in her voice, and miu flips her off for it.‘ are you . . . alright, kiyo? ‘

 

kiyo looks down at his hands, as though he’ll find the answers in the wrinkled lines of his skin. his voice is soft, when he speaks. ‘ kirumi, miu. you agree that . . . i deserved what i got, in the execution, yes? ‘ the both of them are silent, taken by surprise, and he continues too quickly after the beat of pause for them to come up with a response. ‘ is it . . . that implausible that i believe that, as well? ‘

 

ah.

 

one part of miu just thinks _well, at least it wasn’t some weird kinda masochism thing,_ but another part of her . . . gets it. planning to kill someone, even someone like kokichi - the guilt that riddled her stomach would have made her throw up, if she had programmed that possibility into the virtual world. she might still blame kokichi for her death, but . . . it’s not as if she was an innocent victim. she’d been planning to kill him.

 

‘ look, ‘ she says, scratching her ass for a moment as she tries to summon up her singular ounce of tact, ‘ you might still be a creepy fuck, but i think i kinda get it, y’know? ‘ she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away. ‘ i didn’t kill anyone, but i _would’ve,_ if gonta hadn’t done me in first, y’know? and . . . like, listen, the serial killer thing really isn’t fucking cool, but assassin’s creed and the gremlin both killed way more fucking people than you, and we’re acting all fuckin’ fine with them, right? so i guess . . . we can’t judge you too hard for that. ‘

 

‘ besides, ‘ kirumi adds, knitting her fingers together elegantly, ‘ it seems that i am _not_ actually the prime minister of japan, nor were the meteors or the funeral ever something that really happened. however, we remembered all of those things, did we not? given that, it seems . . . unwise to see all of our memories as fact. especially one that, coincidentally, accelerated the killing game by giving you a history that would cause you to murder. after all . . . i also killed for a falsehood, in the end. ‘

 

kiyo looks pained, but his head drops once, and he nods. ‘ the possibility had . . . also occurred to me, if i’m honest. i . . . i think sister wasn’t falsified. ‘ he shifts his arms, tilting them out demonstratively. ‘ both the rope scars and the . . . other scars were directly correlated to her. ‘

 

‘ jesus fuckin’ christ, dude, ‘ miu says. ‘ so’s that why you wore those freaky bandages all the time? ‘

 

‘ i do prefer it when people don’t look at me like i should be institutionalized, ‘ kiyo replies wryly, drawing his arms back in to his chest.

 

miu snorts. ‘ well, fuckface, guess what? ‘ she gestures widely to the hospital around them. ‘ guess that strategy fuckin’ failed, huh? ‘

 

‘ you don’t say? ’ kiyo says, drier than the sahara desert. ‘ well, that clears quite a few things up. i thought this was a luxury hotel and the service was just awful. ‘

 

‘ miu, ‘ kirumi says, just deciding to ignore that, ‘ what do you suggest we do with him? you _did_ bring him here, after all. ‘

 

‘ bold of you to assume i ever plan anything out, ‘roomi, ‘ miu says, hopping up onto her bed. ‘ heh. get it. cause you’re kirumi, and we’re roommates. ‘

 

kirumi closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, before turning her attention to kiyo. ‘ you can stay here at least until kaede returns. obviously we will have to discuss it with her. if she has an issue with you staying here for the time being, do you think kokichi would be willing to let you stay with him? ‘

 

‘ i don’t know, ‘ kiyo says, honestly. ‘ possibly, but it can be . . . hard to tell, with him. ‘

 

‘ because he’s a little rat bastard, ‘ miu supplies helpfully.

 

‘ certainly one way to put it, ‘ kiyo states, too tired to argue with her. ‘ though . . . ‘ he looks down at his hands. ‘ whatever does happen, miu . . . thank you for pulling me out. you had no obligation to do that. especially . . . ‘ he gestures weakly. ‘ since it’s me. ‘

 

‘ eh, don’t get your panties in a twist, ‘ miu says. ‘ i figured i kinda owed you one for being a dick and pushing you into the pool the other day. guess we’ve evened the score now, huh? ‘

 

‘ i guess so, ‘ kiyo murmurs, eyes distant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this fic have a plot? we just don't know! hypothetically


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one's mostly pretty lighthearted lmao

‘ i don’t even  _like_ yogurt, ‘ miu says, sprawling out on her back over the rubber couch as she spoons her fifth yogurt cup, sticking her tongue out lazily and letting it slowly  _schlorp_ in a dollop off of the spoon into her mouth. ‘ but hell if i’m gonna let those bastards get to keep their own food when we get all this shitty hospital crap, you feel me? ‘

 

‘ see? ‘ kokichi says with a loud burp, setting down the half-empty two liter bottle he’d been chugging from. ‘ miu gets it! ‘

 

‘ miu hasn’t thrown up three times and counting, though, ‘ kiyo notes dryly, not himself partaking in any of the stolen food, just wrapping himself in a blanket, knees pulled to his chest and content to watch them. he’s slowly but surely recuperating after his breakdown earlier.

 

kaede and kirumi had wanted to sleep for the night, so kiyo, who had been too alert and uneasy still to try and sleep, and miu, who was chronically insomniac, had both headed out of their room for the night so they could have the chance to sleep. along the way, they had met up with kokichi ( who staunchly denied that he had been hovering around their room to wait and see if kiyo was doing better ) and rantaro, who seemingly just wandered.

 

kokichi had broken into the staff lounge, and all of them had made off with as much as their hands could carry, bringing it into their own lounge and setting it up like a pseudo midnight feast of other peoples’ leftovers and yogurts and future lunches.

 

rantaro munched thoughtfully on another handful of sour cream and onion chips. ‘ can you really say you’re surprised by how far kokichi’s willing to go out of spite, though, kiyo? ‘

 

kokichi grins darkly. ‘ oh, you have no idea. ‘

 

there’s some story there, kiyo thinks. something that had . . . probably happened after miu’s death, seeing as the looks all three of them were giving kokichi were blank ones. but it was anyone’s guess as to what it was.

 

‘ hey, kiyo, ‘ miu says, scraping the bottoms of the empty yogurt tins with a plastic spoon and licking it clean, ‘ your trial starts tomorrow. are you gonna be okay, or are you gonna go all to hell again? ‘ it’s true. they had just seen tenko’s death, himiko’s nails digging into the beanbag she had been sitting in so hard she’d torn holes in the fabric. the trial for kiyo’s guilt began tomorrow.

 

‘ i . . . don’t know, ‘ kiyo replied truthfully. ‘ i . . . i think i might be okay for the first part of it, at least. ‘

 

just like he had been in the trial itself, calm and composed as he was accused of and then found guilty of killing tenko via seesaw trick, more interested in observing the reactions of the people around him than the consequences of his actions.

 

but then, sister had appeared. his story had spilled out, and he had broken down, and then he had died, with all his classmates hating him.

 

‘ i’m . . . ‘ he starts, hesitating, short-cropped nails beginning to scrape at his forearms, seemingly an idle thing, unaware of it. ‘ miu, you . . . you and kokichi must kind of know the feeling, right? i just . . . already, people dislike me so much here. how will they react to  _this_? i can’t . . . i won’t be able to blame them if they turn against me for this. ‘

 

‘ i know how you feel, ‘ kokichi says, voice oddly serious for a moment as he pushes around some fried rice on a paper plate, avoiding eye contact. ‘ there’s . . . a pretty bad side of you out there for everyone to see, huh? ‘

 

‘ i’m a little nervous too, ‘ rantaro admits, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘ shuichi told me about . . . everyone finding my lab and the survivor’s perk, later. i’m kinda worried you’ll all realize how useless i really was, huh? ‘

 

‘ i got really bad after kiyo’s death, ‘ kokichi admits, before pulling a dramatic about to cry face, lower lip wobbling. ‘ probably because i w-was so betrayed by what you had done, kiyo! ‘ a lone, dramatic crocodile tear rolls down one gaunt cheek. ‘ i looked up to you so much . . . ‘

 

‘ stop, ‘ kiyo says, unamused, stealing a single spoonful of rice off of kokichi’s plate.

 

‘ yeah, shut the fuck up, you popped little zit, ‘ miu jeers, before licking off the back of her spoon contemplatively. ‘ hey, hey, rantaro. ‘

 

‘ hm? ‘

 

‘ truth or dare? ‘ she asks with a grin and exaggerated eyebrow waggle, crunching up the yogurt cup and tossing it at the garbage can, missing by a few inches and not bothering to pick it up. her grin only widens at the collective groaning. ‘ come on, you pussies, it’ll help you all stop moping around. ‘

 

‘ truth, ‘ rantaro says, rummaging through the pile of stolen food until he finds a slightly melty juice pop, licking a few stray drops off his fingers as he pulls it out of the wrapper and slouching back down into his chair. ‘ i’m not really in a mood to strip or whatever else you might make me do. ‘ it’s said with a little smile, but a warning one.

 

‘ fuck marry kill: the three of us? ‘ she says, immediately.

 

‘ well, ‘ he starts, slowly, and gives her a sheepish kind of smile. ‘ i  _am_ gay, miu, so by default . . . ‘

 

‘ oh come on! ‘ she exclaims, sinking back into the couch with a huff. ‘ fuck, even if you are gay, you gotta appreciate all  _this,_ right? ‘ and with that, she strikes a pose dramatically – one that would likely come off as more seductive if they weren’t all a little sickly and malnourished, and she weren’t still wearing a neck brace and grey-blue hospital scrubs.

 

‘ of course, ‘ he says, totally straight faced. ‘ however, you’re still stuck in the kill slot, i’m afraid. sorry! ‘

 

‘ jackass, ‘ she mutters, but it doesn’t seem like she’s that bothered.

 

‘ right, ‘ he says. ‘ hm . . . marry kiyo, fuck kokichi. i . . . don’t think i could spend the rest of my life with you, kokichi, no offense. ‘

 

‘ so meeeeean! ‘ kokichi whines, tossing a crumpled napkin in his direction that falls completely short. ‘ you’re fine with spending all that time with kiyo, though? ‘

 

‘ kiyo can be a little unnerving, ‘ rantaro says with a shrug, ‘ but he doesn’t intentionally try and irritate people. ‘

 

‘ what about you two? ‘ miu says, sitting back up. ‘ fuck marry kill in this group? ‘

 

‘ hm, ‘ kiyo says. ‘ fuck you, marry rantaro, kill kokichi. no offense, kokichi, you’re a good friend to me, but i don’t see you as romantically or sexually appealing in any way. ‘

 

‘ does that mean you  _do_  find rantaro and miu sexually or romantically appealing? ‘

 

‘ more so than you, ‘ kiyo says with a raised eyebrow, to which miu whistles appreciatively, jeering at kokichi’s expression.

 

‘ well, i’d kill you all, then, ‘ kokichi says, pouting. ‘ except _maybe_ rantaro. but i don’t want to fuck him, either, so honestly - no, i’d kill all of you. screw you. ‘

 

‘ i’d fuck all of you, ‘ miu says, examining her fingernails. ‘ if kokichi can give _that_ for an answer, i get to say that, too. ‘

 

‘ i suppose that’s certainly one course of logic, ‘ kiyo says dryly, watching miu try and clear out another yogurt container with her tongue and spill a giant glob of it on her face, cussing up a storm at it.

 

‘ kiyo, truth or dare? ‘ miu asks, trying absently to lick the yogurt off her cheek, screwing up her face as if that’ll help her reach, glaring at kokichi when he tries to hand her a napkin and insisting she isn’t a fucking quitter.

 

‘ . . . as far as i know, that isn’t how the game goes, ‘ kiyo puts forwards tentatively.

 

‘ fuck how the game goes, ‘ miu says with a shrug. ‘ i’m miu fuckin’ iruma, i can say how the game goes now. ‘

 

‘ hard to argue with that logic, ‘ rantaro says, snagging the last yogurt cup before miu can reach for it. ‘ you want some of this, kiyo? ‘

 

‘ no thanks, ‘ he responds politely, and his fingers weave tentatively through his short hair for a moment before he replies to miu. ‘ truth. ‘

 

‘ when’d you lose your virginity? ‘ she asks, after a second of tapping her chin andpretending to think about it.

 

kokichi grins and makes a grabby-hands motion at rantaro, who just sighs and drops a small candy bar into his hands. ‘ _told_ you that’d be one of her first questions, ‘ he says smugly, taking a bite out of it. ‘ never doubt me again. ‘

 

kiyo seems to be considering it, plucking at the straps of his mask. ‘ ah . . . hm. give me a second to remember. she was sixteen, and had been for . . . six? months, so - ah, yes. ‘ he rests his hands placidly on his knees. ‘ nine, i believe. ‘

 

miu chokes on her spoon, staring at him, and kiyo blanches a little bit when he gets more or less the same disbelieving reaction from all of them. it’s miu that voices seemingly what they’re all thinking. ‘ fucking . . . _nine?_ ‘ she hesitates, a little uncomfortably. ‘ uh, i guess i should say, uh - non-consensual stuff doesn’t have to count. ‘

 

‘ i know, ‘ kiyo says with a little shrug. ‘ i knew what was being asked of me, and i agreed to it. ‘

 

‘ . . . i don’t really want to play anymore, miu, ‘ kokichi says, still just _looking_ at kiyo, expression unreadable. for a long moment that’s all he does, sits and stares, as though he’s snapping a few pieces of something together. his gaze briefly shifts towards rantaro, before looking back at kiyo. ‘ you said she was sixteen, right? was it . . . _her?_ ‘ ( he doesn’t want to say it outright in front of rantaro, if he doesn’t know yet. it’s not his to reveal. miu seems to be having similar thoughts. )

 

kiyo shrugs, seemingly unbothered by their reactions, though his eyes are . . . distant. ‘ of course. who else? ‘

 

‘ yeah, sorry, kiyo, ‘ miu says, trying to sound less disturbed than she feels, ‘ but there’s no way that’s consensual. however fuckin’ mature you thought you were, she was like twice your age, and you were fuckin’ _nine,_ for shit’s sake. ‘

 

‘ i know my own circumstances better than you, ‘ he snaps at her, and miu cowers back with a faint squeal at his sudden lashing out. ‘ i’m no victim. keep your pity to yourself. i loved her, and i was happy to demonstrate as much. ‘

 

‘ but - ‘ miu starts, after she manages to start recoiling, only to be cut off by rantaro gently resting a hand on her knee.

 

‘ not now, miu, ‘ he says, softly. ‘ you can’t . . . you can’t force this kind of thing. ‘

 

kiyo, where he sits, looks away, and rantaro’s brows draw together. kokichi finds himself wondering just how much rantaro _does_ know. when had he woken up, anyway? maybe he had seen some of the game already. how does he always manage to seem so unreadable?

 

there’s a brief, but awkward, silence.

 

‘ hey, kiyo, ‘ miu starts, rubbing her upper arm a little awkwardly. ‘ i know i said it before, but i’m sorry for shoving you into the pool earlier, y’feel me? you don’t seem _that_ shitty after all. and if i’m willingly hanging out with this shitlord - ‘ she jabs a hand in kokichi’s direction ‘ - i think i should be willing to give you a second chance. or some shit like that. ‘

 

‘ you don’t need to apologize, ‘ kiyo says, looking down. ‘ i understand, don’t worry. ‘

 

there’s a bit of an awkward pause, heavy where it hangs in the air.

 

kokichi knows kiyo doesn’t want pity, but he’s not quite sure what else to feel about him. after all - he became friends with him in the first place because of the thought that no one else would particularly want to. there’s been some level of pity there from the start. and now it’s clear he’s just . . . not quite all-there. like driftwood, bleached and worn down from too many years adrift, kiyo has been shaped by losing his anchor for so long, and it feels a little hollow to resent him for being broken, when the world around him turned him brittle in the first place.

 

the silence becomes _too_ oppressive, so he lets out a massive burp, causing kiyo and miu both to jump, and rantaro to just sigh, shaking his head. ‘ well, i’m _stuffed,_ but i don’t wanna let them just have the rest of their food! ‘

 

‘ we could just throw it out, ‘ kiyo points out, tipping his head in the direction of the trash can in one corner of the room.

 

‘ yeah, but that doesn’t feel _extreme_ enough, ‘ kokichi says, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

 

miu suddenly perks up. ‘ oh! oh, i’m a fuckin’ genius. rantaro, hand me that trash can and some of the handful of napkins by you, will ya? ‘ he looks at her dubiously, but does as he’s asked, and she sweeps all of the food into the trash can, shakingit up for good measure, before squatting over the can and, being sure to pull her scrubs forwards to preserve whatever’s left of her dignity, tugs her scrub pants down.

 

the three boys watch her in stunned disbelief as the sound of her pissing into the trash can be heard by all of them, as she wipes and triumphantly tugs her pants back up, setting the can back where it was and washing her hands with the hand sanitizer dispenser in all the rooms.

 

‘ you’re an insane bitch, you know that? ‘ kokichi asks eventually, after staring at her for a long moment.

 

‘ insanity and genius are often confused, ‘ she replies airily, flopping back into her chair.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very quick little update, just to get things rolling again, covering the first bit of the chap 3 investigation in their rewatch. bone app teeth

for the third trial, it seemed like everyone was huddled in groups, almost . . . protectively, around the people who were most affected by it. it had been _hard,_ getting everyone in there – kokichi had stalled them for almost two and a half hours, kiyo absolutely refused to go into the lounge, digging his heels in and eventually just having to almost be carried in by two team danganronpa attendants.

 

now, he was sitting on the couch, fiddling with his short hair nervously, tugging on the ragged ends or twisting tiny braids into it and just as quickly undoing them, hands shaking with a manic, anxious sort of energy. ryoma and kokichi had taken up seats on either side of him, ryoma looking like he didn’t care about the whole ordeal anyway, and kokichi just kinda looking bored, flopped dramatically back with his head in kiyo’s lap, one foot slung over the other knee and stabbing the aluminum foil cover of his juice cup repeatedly with a straw.

 

rantaro was also sitting by the three of them, perched backwards in a chair, chin resting on the back of it. he looked as nonchalant as he ever did, but every so often he would cast back a glance in kiyo’s direction, as if to make sure that he was still there, that he was still safe.

 

himiko has maki and shuichi flanking her initially, but she stands up and resolutely takes the seat right next to tenko, clasping her hand with her own small one. tenko startles at that, looking at where their hands cross a little doubtfully, but giving her a tiny smile and squeezing it, shooting a glare at kiyo and protectively shifting in front of the mage just a little bit. kiyo didn’t even seem to notice, just staring blankly ahead.

 

so with tenko and himiko now – there’s shuichi, maki, kaito, and kaede. angie has kirumi and gonta sitting next to her – kirumi only knows what happened via rumor passed down, but she seems to be wanting to offer her support to angie anyway, since she seems to have the smallest group to support her.

 

it’s funny, perhaps. angie might have had a larger group, considering the student council she ran proved enough that people looked up to her enough to follow her, but two of the members were . . . missing. they hadn’t seen kiibo or tsumugi since they had woken up. the team danganronpa staff had successfully avoided every single question about the two of them they had all tried to ask.

 

miu hangs around indecisively, looking at the groups and chewing her lower lip, before slouching into a beanbag with a clear view of the tv, rather than seemingly picking one person to support. her sprawled-out posture made it look like she couldn’t give less of a fuck if she were trying to.

 

but that was just a lie.

 

kokichi can see the tension in her shoulders, in the stiffness in her neck and the way her hands clench in her scrubs. he stabs a few more holes into the juice container he’s holding, purposefully crossing his eyes a little at the screen as he watches himself ( blurry, now ) pick the lock, knowing what would be behind it now.

 

it’s funny, he thinks a little bleakly, looking right through the tv high-definition picture of angie’s corpse, with the dramatic music whining and the pink making his head ache, right behind his eyes, how unrealistic it looked, now. in the game, it had just been blood. nothing about it had struck him as odd. but that’s . . . not how things are, right? blood is red, not that eye-straining pink that forms in a splatter around angie.

 

like paint. ha.

 

wasn’t it funny that in her last moments, the ultimate artist was part of some twisted artwork, the statues she had so carefully crafted hanging up around her?

 

kiyo is clutching his shoulders now, looking down and away. something like shame, guilt. he had been planning to kill, after all – but angie had been an accident. she hadn’t been supposed to walk in. or something like that – however good of a liar he is, kokichi doesn’t think he’s ever going to understand the mind of someone capable of murder.

 

* * *

 

korekiyo remembered what this had been like. though the screen didn’t show it, he remembered pouring out the salt, remembered _her_ steadying his fingers as he tried to make the circle. remembered the passing thought in the back of his head – why was this here, this deep rolling sickness, something almost like guilt burning holes in his stomach? he had killed before, right? and it was for . . . it was for love. he didn’t need to feel guilty. he didn’t.

 

 _not guilt,_ he remembers her saying to him, her chin resting at the crook of his neck and fingers running through his hair. _excitement – you are so close already, my dear. do this for me. do this for me._

it was hard to meet her eyes, as it ever was – respectful deference means he tends to look down, away. but he glances at her for a moment, and – oh. oh. that’s what that had been.

 

in the odd candlelight of the séance room, it had seemed like there were . . . symbols in her eyes, thin white lines crossing her familiar irises. the gift of retrospect . . . now, with the knowledge he has, he thinks he might have been able to read them, had he looked a little longer. had he dared to question her like that.

 

_V3._

 

the echo of her grips his jaw, brushes a thumb against his lips under his mask, and he has to restrain himself from knocking kokichi off his lap as a shiver racks his body. _come now, korekiyo,_ she hums, voice light and mocking. like talking to a child, too naïve to know how the world worked. _if i were simply a part of the game, how could i be with you now?_

‘ i don’t know, ‘ he murmurs, watching shuichi give kokichi a hand up as blood poured out from the crack in his head on screen, kokichi’s walk wobbling. ( kiyo had actually been the one to help him. to this day, he can’t say why. perhaps he just wanted them to have a fair chance in the trial, but he had at least stopped the blood flow and made sure that, were he concussed, it wasn’t _too_ badly. ‘ but you have to remember . . . it’s possible i am also just part of the game. that i wasn’t . . . real before this. ‘

 

‘ stop talkin’, would you? ‘ miu calls out to him, elbowing him in the shin with a scowl. ‘ i’m tryin’ t’hear. ‘

 

he hadn’t even realized he was talking aloud.

 

he closes his eyes – he’s already seen this before, after all – and focuses on answering her. _if you are real, why can i not remember your name, sister?_ to him, that was the nail in the coffin. she had no name. she _wasn’t_ a person.

 

so why was she still staying by him?

 

on screen, the elevator goes down. he remembers what that had felt like – watching the doors close behind him, getting his last view of the ultimate academy. one way or another, after all, it would be his last. the shock of that had almost made him hyperventilate, stuck in the elevator. but . . . he had learned long ago how to hide his guilt, cease being a suspect.

 

hadn’t he?

 

why couldn’t he remember any of the girls, then? he knew he had done it, but their names, faces . . . he couldn’t put a finger on any of them, just a vague muddled blur of thought.

 

what was true?

 

( though – at least this much was true: whether or not he had been a serial killer, he was now a murderer. he had killed tenko and angie, and he was a murderer. there would be no forgiveness for him, in whatever world came next. )

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be . . . . very stream of consciousness. but mostly dealing with the survivors and their OWN process of figuring out what was really real and fake - whether they were a show, or hope's peak academy students, or if the tragedy was ever real - without having any clues.


End file.
